


53.   The Giver Should Be Thankful

by cognomen, MayGlenn



Series: In The Hands of Destiny [8]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Babysitting, Baze is Smart and Good and Chirrut is So Turned On, Catty Baze and Chirrut, Child Bodhi, Community Service, F/M, Flash Forward, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Poverty, Pre-Rogue One, Religion, Space Buddhism, They Are Both Little Shits Honestly, They Should Put Baze in Charge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 18:23:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11950017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayGlenn/pseuds/MayGlenn
Summary: Chirrut was disappointed that they had much less time to spend together now that Baze had become a monk—he almost regretted it, even, and had to pray most ardently for the Force to teach him wisdom and patience in this, now that he had gotten all of his wishes.(Sometimes, Chirrut was insufferable even to himself.)





	1. Chapter 1

Chirrut was disappointed that they had much less time to spend together now that Baze had become a monk—he almost regretted it, even, and had to pray most ardently for the Force to teach him wisdom and patience in this, now that he had gotten all of his wishes.  
  
(Sometimes, Chirrut was insufferable even to himself.)  
  
But when Baze wasn't researching or testing out his new brick-laying method—he got the small initiates in on the fun, and they thoroughly enjoyed playing in the mud and the sun instead of studying—he was studying for his own doans: first one hundred forms, then five hundred; first one Holy Text, then two at once. And when he wasn't doing any of those things, he was taking his turn in the kitchens, or the gardens, and he had to eat and sleep sometimes. The little time they had together was spent over mud, meals, or lessons. _The Book of Desire_ lay neglected (though they somehow found time to practice a few of those forms they had already mastered).  
  
Now, Chirrut listened to the sounds of the children playing. The bricks had cured, been stacked and cemented together, and cured again in the larger courtyard, and, as a test, they had set the younglings on them. From the sound of it, and the rushes of auras in the Force, Chirrut judged that they were clambering all over the simple structures and enjoying themselves immensely.

"How is it, Baze? How is it holding up? Are they having fun?"  
  
“They’re bricks,” Baze said, leaning back. His body was pleasantly sore from all the work; getting as lean and hard now as Chirrut’s. He had never gotten soft again after his stint in the mines, but the weight was coming back. He was solid now, strong from his efforts.  
  
Strong enough to occasionally throw Chirrut flat on his ass in training sessions, anyway. It almost made up for the differences in their skill levels. He leaned now on a shovel, filthy to the elbows with dried mud and straw, his hair tied back and yet still dirty, and surveyed the work.  
  
“I think we’ve got it now,” he said.

The first batch hadn’t been perfect. It had been hard to find enough water to get them to stick, but not leave them crumbling when they dried. This batch, however—well two kids were standing on the top of the structure and trying to shake it by stomping. “I don’t think they can break it this time, but they’re sure having fun trying. This seems like it should be the sort of thing we teach. Build a wall; break it down. Build again.”  
  
He reached out, snaking his filthy hand around Chirrut’s hip and pulling his partner against his side. He hadn’t ever expected to find happiness like this; not in actions like these. “It’s strange how this isn’t the sort of life the universe tells you will make you happy.”  
  
"Well," Chirrut confided quietly, leaning in, "I imagine the universe tells you this sort of life usually doesn't also include sex. You know, all that hot sex we have time for, more than once a week."

Chirrut laughed only because once a week would be a _luxury_ at this point.  
  
Baze snorted, squeezing Chirrut a little tighter. “Sometimes twice a week.”  
  
“Ha—a moment," Chirrut said, ducking from Baze's arms just in time to catch one of the smaller children as she plummeted from the height of the structure. Instead of startled by the fall, she immediately began to laugh, and Chirrut had to scold her quietly, and also the boy who pushed her. "All right, all right, no more. Everyone get down from there, you're being too rough already."  
  
The children, quite clever, really, had learned a thing or two about Chirrut and Baze—which was why they ran to gather around Baze's waist, tugging at his robes, some of them crying pitifully for extra effect.  
  
"Brother Baze, Brother Baze, please tell Master Chirrut we will be more careful! Please make him let us play on the castle!" they begged.  
  
“It’s not a castle,” Baze said, with a long-suffering sigh. “It’s just a little brick house.”  
  
“It’s a castle to me!” the girl in Chirrut’s arms piped up, and then threw herself back against his shoulder to cry dramatically.  
  
“ _Please_ !” the kids at Baze’s waist chorused.  
  
Helpless, Baze allowed his better judgment to be mowed over by their pitiful expressions. “Alright, but no shoving each other off. We’re supposed to be testing the constitution of the bricks, not of our fellow initiates.”  
  
Chirrut sighed as the girl wriggled down from his arms and climbed back up the house. But things seemed much more subdued, as they were now practicing some sort of dance on the roof, with the bigger ones minding the smaller ones.  
  
"Undermining a Guardian's authority," Chirrut teased, voice low and clicking his tongue as he returned to Baze's side, "you know there's penance you'll have to do for that, brother."  
  
“I’ll do it on my knees,” Baze purred, keeping his tone low and his expression serene so as not to clue the acolytes in to any suggestion in the words. “Then see how you feel about your authority.”  
  
Chirrut could hardly keep a straight face, and wound an arm around Baze's middle, now solid with muscle and enough food, radiating heat from his hard work. He blushed and did his best to ignore this comment, even though he had started it.

"Now we just need the rain test, yes? Or have we glazed them, yet?"  
  
“There’s half glazed half unglazed,” Baze said. “Not that it ever actually rains in niJedha. Just snow, and barely any of that. All this cold and no snow.”  
  
"Would you prefer snow?" Chirrut wondered. "And it does too, rain. Just not often."  
  
The bell for prayer was what drew the children from their playtime.  
  
"Report," Chirrut said, stamping his staff on the floor, and he heard the tiny patter of feet as the acolytes formed up before him like little soldiers. "Are the bricks sound? I mean really. You tested them thoroughly?"  
  
"Yes, Master Chirrut," they chorused.  
  
"And what do we say to Brother Baze for letting us test his bricks?"  
  
"Thank you, Brother Baze!" This was with considerably more enthusiasm, and Chirrut felt the rush of air as they bowed in sync.  
  
"And what do we tell Master Epan Se if he says we were doing something as carnal as _playing_ ?"  
  
"We are helping Brother Baze rebuild the city!" they cried, with even more enthusiasm. They had been practicing this one.  
  
"Good. Let us go to prayer."  
  
“You’re training the next generation of creative deviants,” Baze said, fondly, as he followed Chirrut more slowly up the stairs to the temple, the children running ahead with all the enviable energy of youth.  
  
"Well it wouldn't due to raise a generation of _mundane_ deviants. Need to keep Nan-in on his toes when he's head master." That was their joke of course, their easier interpretation of the otherwise unsettling nature of Chirrut's visions.  
  
At prayer, Baze was comfortable now—settling in, truly, without the desire to stray far. At the top of the stairs, he hesitated to look out over the city, over a place he hadn’t expected to feel was his home.  
  
“Bodhi day is soon, isn’t it?” he wondered aloud, eyes trailing over the places in the city that were damaged and decaying, and hoping they can bring some joy back to them in time for the holiday.  
  
"It is. Will you dance with me?" Chirrut asked, and then guessed that Baze was thinking more practical thoughts. "And tell me all about how pretty our new buildings are?"  
  
Baze turned, seizing Chirrut’s stick-hand with one of his own, and looping the other around his waist, swinging them into a slightly awkward, stick-involved waltz that neither of them was very good at.  
  
"Baze!" Chirrut laughed, giggling, as always, with the thrill that they might get caught and the confidence that it wouldn't matter if they did, but he let himself be led, and let it turn almost natural.  
  
“I’ll dance with you any time,” Baze promised, spinning them both, even as he realized he was leaving smears of mud-dust over Chirrut’s otherwise clean robes. “Though maybe next time after I’ve had a bath.”  
  
"I rather like you when you're dirty," Chirrut said, because Baze had walked right into that one.  
  
They made it into prayers only slightly late—Baze sitting down quickly and adopting an appropriately chastised demeanor when Epan Se shot the pair of them a dirty look, and he lowered his head at the right time and joined the chant that was serving counterpoint to the small gong and chimes.  
  
Baze had a wonderful voice, more for how it felt than how it sounded. It resonated in Chirrut, and became a means by which he could feel the Force even more strongly than he usually felt it.  
  
When the short prayer was over it was off to meal time. "Do you want to get cleaned up first, or after?" Chirrut asked.  
  
“I have to believe that I’ve already eaten my share of dirt,” Baze said, though when he studied his palms they were mostly clean—rubbed off likely on any other surface he encountered along the way. “I am hungry. Food, then a bath.”  
  
They joined the other monks at the tables in the refectory, after Baze did his best to wash his hands and clean off the worst of the caked mud from his knuckles.  
  
He heaped his plate high, and then sat down next to Chirrut, tucking into his food enthusiastically. “I bet if you spoke to Master Sidhava, you could convince him to put us on the same project. I could ask for you.”  
  
"He does like you better than me," Chirrut confided.  
  
Nan-in snorted, and Alussa elbowed him.  
  
"What? It's true!"  
  
"Yes, but you don't have to sound so smug," she scolded, and continued to eat her noodles daintily.  
  
Chirrut slurped his. "I think we would make a good team. All of us."  
  
“We just need to figure out how to get him to assign us all together,” Nan-in said, twisting his meal onto a fork for as much as he could get in one bite. “That would be fun.”  
  
“Easy,” Alussa said. “Just prove that we can work together.”  
  
Baze took several bites of his food as he considered the answer. “So long as you all are willing to listen I’m sure we can work it out.”  
  
“Except for Chirrut,” Nan-in added, grinning at his friend. “He never listens.”  
  
"I have better hearing than all of you combined!" Chirrut said (perhaps intentionally not "listening").  
  
Alussa sighed. “I mean, I know we can do great things. The problem is you all distract each other.”  
  
"How would we know? Master Sidhava always separates us," Chirrut said glumly.  
  
" _Okay_ , we'll talk to him," Alussa laughed. "Chirrut, you're insufferable."  
  
“We’re all insufferable in our own ways,” Baze said, wisely, giving Alussa a smile. “It’s what gives us strength.”  
  
“And annoys our friends,” Nan-in added. “How’d it go today with the bricks?”  
  
“Well, we had the whole class of acolytes out there and they didn’t manage to break any,” Baze revealed. “Or each other, despite their best efforts.”  
  
“What does that mean?” Alussa asked.  
  
“It means we had a talk about treating fellow students better than bricks,” Baze said. “Now we just need some rain to have an idea of how they’ll hold up.”  
  
"I was thinking we could haul some water out and simulate rain," Chirrut suggested.  
  
“We could just pee on it a lot,” Nan-in offered.  
  
"We're not peeing on Baze's hard work!"  
  
"Always impatient," Alussa laughed, and tugged Nan-in’s ear. "But we should start building soon. Before bodhi day."  
  
"You see?" Chirrut said, polishing off his noodles. "Look, I'm the highest-ranking. I'll speak to Master Sidhava."  
  
The Masters were as a rule equal now that Chirrut wore a red sash (which he rarely remembered to put on unless Baze helped), though Chirrut didn't feel like it.  
  
“I think it would really make it a more joyful occasion to some of those who have nothing,” Baze agreed. “And I could use a few more hands, so you all could help. Would it help if I went with you, or would it look like I was trying to spend more time with my friends?”  
  
"You should definitely come," Chirrut said, standing up. "Need you to soften him up."  
  
“I don’t see why that should be  frowned upon,” Nan-in said, leaning back from his plate. “People who get along have better chance of doing something successful. I’d rather work with you than Epan Se.”  
  
"Actually, I'd work faster with Epan Se, to get it over with sooner." Chirrut laughed. "Better not admit that."  
  
He offered his arm to Baze. "Let's go find Master Sidhava!"  
  
Baze finished his food in a rush, still chewing when he took Chirrut’s arm and got up from the table—agreeing wordlessly because his mouth was full.  
  
“Good luck!” Alussa called after them.  
  
“Wait, did I just agree to build bricks for the next unknown period?” Nan-in realized, too late.  
  
Baze let Chirrut lead the way through the halls, content just to walk arm-in-arm with him for a while, though he only then realized he was still mud-covered and filthy. He supposed it was what he should look like, after a day building walls.  
  
“It will be good to work with you again,” Baze said. “At least to spend time with you. I didn’t fully realize how busy life was for us.”  
  
"We're not aloof theologians or mad monks," Chirrut said, "or, not _all_ of us are."  
  
He stood at the door of Master Sidhava's office, and called. "Master Sidhava? Are you in?"  
  
"Come in, Master Chirrut. I was hoping to see—ah," he smiled, "Brother Baze. I was making my way through the courtyard and saw your handiwork."  
  
“Good evening, Master Sidhava,” Baze greeted, inclining his head respectfully—he was a brother, but not yet a Guardian. He’d admittedly had a late start. “I seem to have a workable recipe.”  
  
Sidhava nodded, inviting them both inside—his office was not luxurious. There was a bookshelf along one wall lined with scrolls and heavy tomes. A low desk, and cushions for seating. On one corner of the desk a pot of tea steamed, and he gestured that Baze and Chirrut should sit, before pouring them each a cup.  
  
“We’d like to start enacting the restoration projects before the holiday,” Baze started, always feeling a deep desire not to waste Sidhava’s time.  
  
“That sounds like a good idea,” Sidhava answered, serenely. He put a cup of tea into Chirrut’s hands, and then passed one to Baze. “I assume you mean more than just yourself.”  
  
"Well," Chirrut said. "Baze and myself would make a good team. And Nan-in and Alussa offered to help, as well."  
  
Sidhava huffed, and Chirrut couldn't tell if he was amused or annoyed or, as usual, a little of both. "I suppose it'll be backbreaking work? Render you entirely too exhausted to get into any other mischief?"  
  
"Okay, whatever Epan Se told you is a lie! I was copying the texts _exactly_ !" Chirrut protested.  
  
Sidhava sighed. "You and Epan Se are both Guardians of the Seventh Doan, you settle it between yourselves.”  
  
He mused over this carefully. “It probably would be good to get you out of the temple for a few days."

Baze glanced over at Chirrut, wondering exactly what he’d been getting into in the library, but figuring that Sidhava was correct—getting out and doing some hard labor would probably help ease the tensions.

Sidhava turned to Baze. "How soon can you construct enough bricks? And how best to move them?"  
  
“The material’s not a problem, it’s everywhere,” Baze said. “But the labor will have to start with us. If we can interest citizens, we can teach them, too. The more hands, the faster.”

“Probably easier to move the raw components than the finished bricks. We can assemble on-site,” Baze said. “We just have to decide who to help first. I was hoping you could point us in that direction—I don’t want to make a decision that will paint our order as unfair.”  
  
"The Temple keeps a list," Sidhava revealed—Chirrut knew of it, but, for obvious reasons, knew none of the names on it— "of our people who are most needy. To direct our donations and prayers. We could start there."  
  
Sidhava gave them a thin smile that Chirrut almost felt. "Of course, you'll have to speak to Master Epan Se for that registry."  
  
"But," he added, sobering, "you can take as many monks with you as you like. By custom I must give control of the operation to Master Chirrut, though I hope you will grant Brother Baze enough leeway to execute his plan. How's your second doan coming along, Baze?"  
  
Baze could take orders from Chirrut—he frequently did anyway, though he kept that to himself. Epan Se hated him, but if he was the only one who had the registry, then Baze would swallow his pride (what little he had) and go there.  
  
“I believe I have mastered the forms, but the texts...” Baze sighed. It was difficult for him; he could remember what they meant in summary but stumbled over line-for-line learning. “I wish that I had come to you younger. I can still remember all the lines from my blaster maintanence manual.”  
  
Chirrut took Baze's hand. "I told you you're trying to advance too quickly. We'll come up with a mnemonic that matches up with your blaster maintenance manual. Nan-in and I matched the Forms to the Tenets when we were younger, and it was a song. I think Alussa taught it to the initiates this year."  
  
Sidhava nodded at Baze, giving him a private smile and a proud nod. "I think you're advancing at just the right pace, Brother. It is supposed to be a challenge. I believe Master Chirrut forgets the struggles he had, being unable to read the written prompts and being too proud to ask for help."  
  
"That doesn't sound like me," Chirrut said.  
  
“Not at all,” Baze agreed, giving Sidhava a grateful look for the encouragement. “Anyway, the pace I move at hardly matters so long as I move forward.”  
  
“A very wise worldview,” Sidhava observed, and wished as well that Baze had come to them sooner. “I think you’ll make an excellent Guardian.”  
  
“Someday,” Baze agreed. “Thank you for the opportunity, Master Sidhava. I’m looking forward to the work.”  
  
Sidhava nodded again. "You already do much to protect our city, Brother. What more could we want in a Guardian?"  
  
He stood, and Chirrut and Baze also stood up, and bowed from the waist before they left.


	2. Chapter 2

"Now to contend with Epan Se," Chirrut said grimly, hitting his staff on the ground. "You don't have to deal with him. I can go while you wash up, Brother."   
  
Chirrut squeezed Baze's hand.   
  
“No, I’ll come,” Baze squeezed Chirrut’s fingers back reassuringly. “I should fight my own battles. I can’t hide behind your skirts forever.”   
  
Chirrut smiled. "Ah, but here you're letting _me_ hide behind _your_ skirts."   
  
Baze followed Chirrut to Guardian Epan Se’s quarters; these even more spartan than Sidhava’s. He had no desk, no decoration—it almost looked pridefully devoid. A sort of strange one-upsmanship. Baze tapped on the door and waited for the Master to answer.   
  
“Isn’t there something in our texts about extremists?” Baze wondered, under his breath as they waited.   
  
"Yeah. They're called the Jedi, and look what happened to—” but Chirrut was cut off as he heard the door open, “Master Epan Se, so sorry to trouble—"   
  
"I was praying," he snapped, and gave Baze a look of contempt that Chirrut couldn't see. "Someone should be."   
  
“Of course, Master, we are very sorry to interrupt,” Baze said, keeping his tone as civil as possible. They both dipped their head respectfully under his unpleasant gaze. “But we’re here on an errand of service, and then you can return to your prayer.”   
  
Baze disliked the way Epan Se looked at Chirrut—he didn’t mind being the recipient of dirty looks himself, but it seemed dishonest to use them on a blind man. Then again, he hardly concealed the contempt in his tone, either.   
  
“We’re looking for the registry of families in need of aid,” Baze continued, looking somewhere above Epan Se’s head so he didn’t feel the urge to punch him.   
  
"What need have you of that? These wretches have taxed the Temple coffers enough already," Epan Se said. "If they only lived more austerely and worked more assiduously, they would not go hungry."   
  
Chirrut clenched his fists around his staff, deciding to attempt once more to be civil.   
  
"Indeed," he ground out. Epan Se had as little idea how it was to be poor as Chirrut did. Voluntary poverty hardly counted. "Nevertheless, our texts have something to say about giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish, and we are here to do the latter..."   
  
"Ah," Epan Se replied, so brightly that it sounded sharp, "it is always a pleasant _surprise_ to hear you citing the Sacred Texts, Master Chirrut."   
  
“They also mention that doing good enriches your own life,” Baze agreed, keeping his tone as mild as possible. He couldn’t help his irony as he added, “And we have so much to atone for.”   
  
"I do know them, as much as it may seem otherwise," Chirrut said with a smile. Epan Se insulting him was something he could deal with. "And so does Baze, though he is new to our Order. Now, the registry?"   
  
Baze watched as Epan Se considered their request, as if juggling how he could be nasty about it while maintaining the moral high ground, and Baze kept his patience as best as possible. Finally, Epan Se gave in under their serene expressions.   
  
“Very well, wait here,” Epan Se allowed, before going to his nearly barren shelf to pull down the volume.   
  
Epan Se held it in front of Chirrut's face, like he expected him to see it and take it, and Chirrut did get a smell of it and reach a hand out just as the bastard pulled it back. "I hope I'll have it returned to me in as good condition as I lent it? You won't get mud all over it."   
  
He sneered especially at Baze's dirty arms and robes.   
  
"A book of such general value might as well be left in the library," Chirrut said, carefully. "I would be glad to take charge of it. Since its material safety is such a distracting concern to you."   
  
"You?" Epan Se laughed, a pitying sound. "They would rob you blind—literally!"   
  
“Very well, we will merely make a copy,” Baze said, politely. “Our public works are very dirty and I’m certain the under-priveledged will understand that we need to take time out to preserve your tome of records.”   
  
Epan Se pinned Baze with eyes that looked like they might shoot needles.   
  
“Then we will not need to trouble your pious prayers or interrupt you with any further meaningless requests,” Baze continued, his tone as level as possible. “And then the library will have a copy as well. Isn’t it wise to have a backup?”   
  
Epan Se spluttered. "Look, Sidhava has entrusted this task to _me_. If we gave money to every poor single mother who can't make rent and has six mouths to feed, the Temple would be bankrupt in a week!"   
  
Chirrut let the flash of anger run its course without punching Epan Se in the face, and it fizzled into deep suspicion.   
  
"That's an oddly specific story," he said, and, like he was striking an enemy, snatched the book from Master Epan Se's hands. "Thank you for the book, Master."   
  
Now Chirrut stepped close, and kept his voice low, but not bothering to hide the threat in his tone. "Whenever you would like it back, you are welcome to try to take it."   
  
Leaving Epan Se swallowing curses and threats in his cell during prayer time, Chirrut passed the book to Baze as he turned away.

Baze accepted the book, uncertain if they should have antagonized Epan Se quite that much, but—he had asked for it. There was something abut displaying the behavior you wished the world to return to you in what Baze was trying to learn right now, anyway. If he didn’t wish to recieve malice, he should not display it.

"Who is the last entry?” Chirrut asked mildly, as they walked away. “We'll start with her."  
  
Baze flipped the book open in his hands, and found the latest entry. He didn’t question Chirrut’s guess that the last entry was a woman. “Pratyeka Rook. A mother of two; far more manageable than _six_ hungry mouths I suppose.”   
  
He paused, making note of her details in his mind. “Was it really wise to press quite so hard on the master? I know he’s insufferable...”   
  
"Someday I'm going to press his face in," Chirrut said, grinding his teeth, and it was only Baze's arm winding around his shoulders that stayed his violent thoughts.

Chirrut deflated.  
  
"No, you're right. As my friend and beloved soulmate, I don't mind admitting what I might do to him if we met in a dark alley, but. As a Guardian of the Whills to an impressionable acolyte, indeed, your wisdom is far beyond your years." He said this with a small twinkle in his smile, for Baze was, they reckoned, slightly older than him.  
  
“Ah yes, my impressionism cannot be discounted,” Baze said, closing the book again and tucking it under his arm. “I’m certain to make bad decisions without your most excellent guidance. Since you are clearly a shining example of self control and wise decision-making.”  
  
"See, this is the kind of respect I should receive all the time," Chirrut couldn't help but say with a laugh, for it was so absurd.   
  
Baze leaned over to kiss Chirrut’s cheek gently, as they returned to their quarters for the evening. They could take the tome of records to the library in the morning, but for now he had to wash up.  
  
“Will you join me at the baths?” Baze asked. “I’m a right mess and I’d hate to offend Epan Se by committing the sin of dusty sheets.”  
  
"Ugh. Never mention his name in conjunction with our sheets ever again!" Chirrut laughed. "Of course I will join you."   
  
“You don’t think he’s so uptight because he hasn’t gotten laid, do you?” Baze wondered, idly. “Not to speculate on a man’s sex life...”  
  
"Someone would be doing the galaxy a favor if...ew, no. We will just deal with him how he is. I would not wish that on anyone."  
  
Chirrut left his outer robes hanging up in their room, and brought a change of underclothes for himself and Baze, insisting, "Let me carry them. You'll get them dirty."  
  
“Wise decision,” Baze said, letting Chirrut handle his underwear. It would hardly be the first time. He dropped his own outer robes into the wash pile, and made a note to himself to take an extra rotation—he knew several of the younger acolytes would be sending robes in similar condition.


	3. Chapter 3

At the baths, Baze washed with a bucket before stepping into the pools, scrubbing the worst of the cement and mud off his  hands and into the garden, so he wouldn’t carry it into the baths.   
  
Chirrut followed the splashes to where Baze had stepped in, and had just wound his arms around him when a wolf-whistle stopped him mid-kiss.    
  
It was Nan-in! And Alussa, spying on them, judging by the laughter!

"Nan-in!" Chirrut cried, splashing in their direction. 

The sounds came from behind some fronds, and Chirrut swam over to investigate.   
  
"Hey, we were having a tryst in here first. Who interrupted whom?" Nan-in shot back.   
  
“No one is interrupting anyone doing anything,” Baze said, in a professional ‘I can be the adult here’ voice as he worked to scrub himself clean with the harsh soap that seemed to take a whole layer of his skin off with all the dirt—and it felt good. “You two can continue making out and we’ll continue ignoring you.”   
  
“That would be awkward, especially if we’re supposed to be ignoring you two making out,” Nan-in said, though he glanced at Alussa to see what she thought of the idea first.   
  
“I just want to wash my hair,” Baze continued. 

"You can do what you like, I'm going to wash Baze's hair," Chirrut said, though he hadn't exactly cleared this with Baze yet. "And will you help me shave?"    
  
Since he couldn't be goaded much more, Chirrut heard Nan-in and Alussa move, giggling, deeper into some foliage. So he paddled over to trace his fingertips over the smoothed, clean skin of Baze's arms. "I don't mind who sees."   
  
“There’s nothing exciting to watch anyway,” Baze said, reaching for Chirrut to touch him gently as well. “Unless shaving is as exciting as—no, they’re plenty distracted.”   
  
Baze shook his head and sank down under the surface of the water to wet his hair and swish most of the day’s dust out of it, emerging again under Chirrut’s hands and letting him guide Baze into place on one of the stairs, where he could sit and Chirrut could see to his hair. It was extremely soothing; the quickest way to put Baze’s mind at ease. 

Chirrut enjoyed working a lather through Baze's lengthening hair. Busying his hands with such a pleasurable task calmed his mind better than any meditation, and he could feel it did the same for Baze, which only soothed him the more. As a result, he spent longer on Baze's hair than Baze really needed, and then had to condition his hair again after the harsh soap. Whoops. 

“I hope  _ we  _ were never like that,” Baze teased, letting his voice carry.

"If we are, we're still like that," Chirrut said. "I don't think it's worth it to hide affection. Our vows don’t encourage dishonesty."   
  
"You speak the truth as always," Baze answered, feeling far more relaxed and permissive after Chirrut had sent him practically to nirvana just by rubbing his head. He cracked one eye open, glancing back to see that Chirrut looked just as at peace. "But that doesn't mean we can't pretend our relationship is superior because we have a little dignity in conducting our affairs."   
  
It was, of course, all in good fun. Baze sat up when his hair was done, and touched noses with Chirrut. "Your turn. I was beginning to like your scruff, but it looks a little moth-eaten if it gets any longer."   
  
"Ha!" Chirrut laughed. "That's your own fault, then, not caring for your poor blind friend!"    
  
Chirrut waded over to his shaving kit, opening the small box and lathering up the brush in the pot of cream, almost like he was going to do it himself before he remembered, and handed brush and razor to Baze. "I-it really doesn't look  _ so _ bad yet, does it? You're not embarrassed to be seen with me?"   
  
"Ashamed to be seen with the most handsome monk in the temple?" Baze asked, taking the kit from Chirrut and looking carefully at the razor, before he began to work the soap to a lather. "No, my friend. Not even if you glued a dead tauntaun hide to your face."   
  
He tipped Chirrut's head forward and kissed him, before applying lather to his chin and cheeks. "Some men just aren't meant for beards. It's alright."

Chirrut, who  _ had  _ been a bit worried, though he didn't want to admit it, smiled into the kiss, and then kept his features very still as Baze daubed him with lather from the brush. "Well, good to know. Thank you."   
  
“That’s not an invitation to glue anything to your face and wake me up in the middle of the night,” Baze said, keeping his tone mild as he finished spreading lather over Chirrut’s upper lip, and then worked the razor on the strop a few times to make sure it was sharp and even, and then went to work. It was easy, since there was hardly any need to be shy about touching Chirrut’s face.   
  
Chirrut thought, not for the last time, that he really should ask Baze to do this every day. There was something very intimate and sexy about being able to trust Baze so physically, to  _ show _ it. The scrape of the razor over his skin felt better when Baze did it. And Baze never ever cut him, which was better than Chirrut's own track record.    
  
Finally, tilting and turning Chirrut’s face back and forth to access it, Baze decided he was done.    
  
“Alright, rinse off. You’re smooth again,” Baze said, cleaning the razor carefully.   
  
Chirrut cleaned his face quickly, coming up from the water spluttering and touching his face to check the smoothness.    
  
"A final test," he said, leaning up for a kiss.    
  
He waited until Baze was very close before whispering, "I hope you didn't miss a spot, because you'll feel it when I go down on you tonight."   
  
Baze snorted, kissing Chirrut fiercely before he got the chance to tease any further. He brushed his fingers over the opposite cheek, feeling how smooth and soft it was—it always seemed even better just after a shave.    
  
“I’ll tell you if I notice,” Baze muttered, smiling against Chirrut’s skin. Then he reached for their towels, getting out of the bath and offering one to Chirrut before he raised his voice for the benefit of Nan-in and Alussa. “Have fun you two!”   
  
"You, too!" Alussa replied from some wriggling fronds, and Baze and Chirrut dressed quickly, to be gone the sooner.    
  
After they had gone: 

"Well, Chirrut shaved, you know what that means," Nan-in laughed immaturely.    
  
"You know,  _ you  _ could learn something," Alussa replied, and Nan-in's eyes lit up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pure smut.

Upstairs, Chirrut, kissing Baze backwards into the room, hastily shut the door behind them, and was already working into Baze's loose trousers as he toppled him back onto their shared cot.  
  
Baze allowed himself to be tipped back, surprised by Chirrut’s transition into something so impatient, though he shouldn’t be. By now he should be used to Chirrut’s capricious changes in mood when it came to sex, and the fact that he was almost endlessly inventive... Baze hit the cot carefully, avoiding banging his head and limbs on any furniture, and then easing Chirrut’s practically manic descent afterward so _he_ didn’t bang his head or limbs on any furniture, and then he pulled their mouths together to slow Chirrut briefly, before he drew back with a hiss.   
  
“Your face tastes like soap,” Baze said, trying to work the stinging tang of shaving soap off his tongue. He was undoing Chirrut’s robes anyway—it was but a minor delay.   
  
"Hope your cock doesn't," Chirrut smirked, freeing Baze from his trousers and licking him experimentally, working him once or twice with a fist and fitting his mouth around the rest.   
  
"Mm," he said, meaning, perhaps, that the taste was not soapy, and he paused to lick his lips enough to keep going.

As his throat accepted more of Baze's length he moved his hands to Baze's hips, feeling muscles working in tandem with his soft groans and gasps, as loud as he dared, and certainly enough for Chirrut to pick up.  
  
It had taken a while for Baze to abandon silence during the act. It was his nature to be quiet and his previous trysts taking place in a barracks or bar backrooms hadn’t exactly encouraged him otherwise. But Chirrut enjoyed wrenching sounds out of him: low gasps and sighs as he arched up slowly, one hand hanging on tight to the side of the cot, the other curled with contrasting gentleness at the back of Chirrut’s neck.   
  
They were both getting better at this together; at togetherness, also. Baze rocked his hips up and repeated Chirrut’s name in a slow, encouraging litany that worked its way in around sighs and groans.   
  
_Beautiful_ , Chirrut couldn't stop thinking, whatever "beautiful' meant to a blind man. This was it. Baze was it. Baze felt good, body and spirit, tasted and smelled good, even if a little too musky, too soapy, not enough Baze. Chirrut yearned for him, ravenous, like he was a young and dedicated acolyte again, impatient and desperate to learn the mysteries of the Force.   
  
Now, worshiping Baze was worshiping the gifts of the Force, and there was nothing, morally nor theologically, wrong with that.

Chirrut's fingers wandered down, rolling over his balls, promising to work lower. _I want to fuck you_ , he wanted to say, but didn't want to move his mouth off its prize until he tasted victory in Baze's pleasure. Then he would ask, request, even declare. _Mine_ . _The Force has given you to me and no one else. The Force has bid me enjoy you._

"Chirrut—!" Baze tried to warn, to ask for a break, or delay, or at least let him know it was imminent that Baze was going to lose it, but there was no satiating Chirrut and no abatement to be had.  
  
Baze clawed up the sheets and came, feeling like something had opened up under him and swallowed him in. There was nothing to do but fall willingly, and then wait for the sparks behind his eyelids to fade.   
  
He wondered if Chirrut ever saw sparks, before he reached down to hook both his hands under Chirrut's shoulders and pull him up to get their mouths together for a far longer kiss. But he pulled immediately back with a wrinkled up nose. "That's worse than soap. What's got you in a rush, bǎobèi?"   
  
Chirrut laughed, wiping what he hoped was just spit from his chin. "Nothing. And everything. I haven't had as much time with you as I would like these weeks."   
  
Chirrut kissed him again, despite his protests (which were not great). "I have been thinking about fucking you, my only. My prayers have been very singular of late. I have never fucked the savior of NiJdedha before."   
  
“I don’t think you can do that before the city is saved,” Baze said, practically, but he was reaching overhead anyway, rifling in the bedside drawer for what they’d need. “I think you can fuck the potential savior, possibly the _future_ savior, but you’ll have to do it again after we’ve rebuilt all the houses to truly have the full experience.”   
  
Baze cut his words off with a small gasp as Chirrut shifted against him to stem the tide of his words, pulling the bottle out of his hand with impatience as Baze sat up some, reaching down to get a hand on Chirrut and stroke him as he got everything else ready.   
  
“Unless you’re just going to keep going until everything’s alright again,” Baze continued, with a laugh. “That would be an interesting method.”   
  
Chirrut's hum turned into a laugh again. "Oh, I should try—I should love to try!"   
  
Still giggling, still kissing Baze, he tilted him back onto the cot again, slicked a finger, and began working it in gentle but insistent circular motions around his entrance. "Comfortable, my sweet? I want you totally relaxed. Maybe I should give you a massage."   
  
Of course, Chirrut probably wouldn't be patient enough for that, but he might be able to make good on one _after_ he fucked him through the cot.   
  
“I’m very relaxed,” Baze assured him, pulling the pillow down beneath his hips to tilt them up slightly, then leaning back and closing his eyes to just _feel_ for a while. “But if you think we can both get through a massage without falling asleep...”   
  
His words stuttered to a halt as Chirrut pushed a finger into him; still impatient enough for that. Baze sighed out, arching up, stretching his back. He felt a little like he was going to slide off the cot—but mostly only because it was a small cot. They were going to have to find a way to get more space, he thought; maybe just two sleeping pads on the floor together...   
  
“I won’t break, Chirrut,” Baze suggested, as Chirrut continued taking his time.   
  
Chirrut had a hand splayed over Baze's stomach, hard with muscle and rough with hair. He loved the different textures and tones of Baze, how thin the skin was in the soft junction between hip and thigh, how thick and tough his skin was on his arms, how too much of him was dotted with scars. Sometimes Chirrut would almost weep over them, feeling the haunt of old pain in them, but now he just enjoyed how they felt under his fingertips. And as he worked more fingers inside him, Chirrut let his fingertips wander over more of Baze, charting pert nipples and a steady heartbeat, a tuft of hair over his chest, strong arms—like, swoon-worthy—hands that gripped the edge of the cot for dear life.   
  
"We could donate the bed, and sleep on mats on the floor," Chirrut suggested, staring up at the ceiling as he brought his hand home, to slick his cock and fit a condom on, one-handed. "To demonstrate our piety."   
  
“I was just thinking about that,” Baze groaned, arching himself up again, easing into position and reaching out for Chirrut; to hang onto him instead of the mattress, one of his hands curling around Chirrut’s strong forearm to feel the contact and motion. Chirrut looked— _felt_ —intense this evening. Connected to him and the world and the temple.   
  
With a laugh he lined himself up and pushed home, and a scant moment of adjustment was all he could manage before Need overwhelmed him, the world humming, electrified, around him. "Hhn. My qīn’ài de, my Baze." He dug his fingers into where he gripped Baze's waist. "Mine in the Force."   
  
Baze grunted, moved by the motion; kicking his knees wider to give Chirrut the space to move. He wasn’t truly used to this—but it felt real and true and grounding and Baze liked that Chirrut was in a rush—he’d goaded him after all. He covered Chirrut’s hand with his own. “Yours in everything.”   
  
"Mine. My only." Chirrut nodded, let himself bend forward—not close enough for a kiss, the angle was all wrong—and he set his teeth and took Baze hard, wanting them both to feel this, needing Baze to know how much he loved him, how much he needed this, how good it felt. "As I am yours."   
  
Chirrut got his hand around Baze's cock, felt him stiffen at his touch, and bent down to kiss his chest, kissed across until he felt a nipple under his lips, and he sucked on it, wanting it hot and sensitive. "Want to feel you out of your mind with bliss. Want you to know what a treasure you are to me—I want everyone to know. Let me hear you."   
  
Chirrut grunted, attempting a new angle until he found the one that had Baze keening.   
  
The sounds came roughly out of Baze’s throat as his body tried to keep up with Chirrut’s demands and found the reserve; something to do with the way Chirrut was hitting his prostate like a target, making Baze feel the rough, raw edges of him, teeth at his chest and hard grips at Baze’s hips, and he forgot words but gave Chirrut what he wanted.   
  
The hard visceral sound of it was enough, enough to leave him sure that whatever he was shouting, that Epan Se would have something to say about it in the morning, and this time the ascent toward release was slower, the nerves firing and the sensation pooling and growing in his belly until he was grabbing hard for Chirrut’s shoulders, digging his nails into them as Chirrut bit marks onto his neck that would show in the morning.   
  
It was a rare evening that they were this rough with each other, and a rare day after when they’d still carry the marks, but when Baze pried his eyes open he was pretty sure he’d never seen poetry like the arcing line of Chirrut’s back, or the intense expression on his face, the way his hand was moving over Baze’s cock like they were both on a mission to get off and he was making sure no man was left behind.   
  
“I’m close,” Baze managed, and his voice sounded rough; harsher even than usual. Glass-crackle hard and sharp. “Chirrut, come with me.”   
  
"Always, always," Chirrut promised. His hands and hips were losing their rhythm, his heart feeling like it wanted to beat out of his chest. "Right before or right behind. I—"   
  
The punch of release was startling, overwhelming, and Chirrut buried himself inside his love, fingers scrabbling and scratching until Baze clasped his hand, and with the other he worked Baze to completion, both of them shouting the other’s name.   
  
They collapsed in a messy heap, panting, Chirrut pecking kisses and gentle nips along Baze's neck, and wandering to his lips to kiss him hungrily.

"I am one with the Force," he whispered, tracing patterns over Baze's chest with his fingertip, "and the Force is with me. I feel the Force in you. And you are with me."  
  
“Funny,” Baze muttered, breathless but grinning. “I feel _you_ in me. Forget the Force.”   
  
“Blasphemy.” Chirrut sat up in an elbow. "Can we try something?"   
  
Baze huffed out a breath, as if fortifying himself, and then nuzzled his cheek against Chirrut’s, answering his kiss with a hungry one of his own.   
  
“We can try anything,” Baze said, sighing out. “As long as it doesn’t involve getting up off this bed.”   
  
"No moving, I promise," Chirrut laughed, gently pulling out, easing the adjustment for both of them, and disposed of the condom—he heard it hit the waste bin, whether or not it went in. He grabbed the towel from Baze's hand and wiped them as clean as he could manage, and then took a careful, steadying breath.   
  
"I want you to, ah, to meditate with me. And try to feel me, in the Force. The way I can feel you," Chirrut explained. "Feel where you are. What you're feeling."   
  
Baze could hardly help his skeptical silence. In the past, he has meditated hundreds of times—silently in the temple courtyard or surrounded by chanting at prayer. The sex was surely good, but not enough to fuck Baze into manifesting force sensitivity.   
  
Chirrut laughed. "Don't give me that look. You're giving me a look! It will work! I'm going to reach out to you and—I want you to feel me, find me, and come with me."   
  
"I can feel you right now," Baze assured Chirrut, but he was willing to try, because it was for Chirrut and they could hardly get any closer any other way. He cupped his hand against Chirrut's ass in demonstration. "But alright, tell me what to do."   
  
Chirrut's lips pulled back in a grin that showed too much gum, and he leaned down to kiss Baze's chest. "Close your eyes."   
  
Chirrut took Baze's hand, holding his wrist until they could each feel the other's pulse drumming under their fingertips. "Match my breaths. Meet my heartbeat with yours."   
  
They took a few breaths together, Chirrut praying almost-silently. "And then we slip into meditation together. Clearing our minds. Becoming open to the Force. That's—all I want from you. Be open. Trust the Force—trust me."   
  
"Keep your eyes closed," he added with a laugh.   
  
Baze focused on his breathing and heartbeat, peaking up into the darkness, but somehow Chirrut always knew. There seemed to be hardly any difference when he closed his eyes except he couldn't see Chirrut's serene expression and focus.   
  
"Alright, he muttered. "But no promises I won't fall asleep."   
  
"You won't fall asleep," Chirrut whispered.   
  
He closed his eyes and let his mind drift, feeling his mirror in Chirrut, and then tried to reach out, feeling ridiculous for a moment. It could all be one of Chirrut's jokes; Baze could almost see his smile, the way it got brighter when he scored a point against Baze at practice.   
  
_No_ , Baze realized. He could almost _feel_ it...   
  
_Yes_ , Chirrut thought, feeling that gentle nudge, like a bird pecking its way out of an egg.   
  
Chirrut reached out, honing his own senses, his own skill. Lines solidified around Baze, settling into his skin and going deeper, following the circuit of his blood through his veins, the pattern of the air he breathed, until it swam through his middle. The Force in him.

 _I see you_ he said. _And you're beautiful_.   
  
For Baze it was a slow, strange descent. Like moving through mud, like getting pulled deeper into something he didn’t quite understand. But it was—strangely warm mud. Strangely welcoming.   
  
And then it was like something had slipped beneath his defenses and punched him straight in the solar plexus and Baze gasped and dropped back, startled and winded. For an instant—just an instant—he was _sure_ he’d heard Chirrut, but like he was under Baze’s skin; like he was deeper than on top of him.   
  
His eyes snapped open, and he had to gasp for air; he’d been holding it, perhaps—longer than the amount of time that seemed to have passed, anyway. Then, a laugh startled out of him; a single chuckle.   
  
Chirrut was snapped out of it, too, with a small, disoriented gasp. For a long moment, no words passed between them—what did they need to add to their souls brushing?   
  
Then Chirrut laughed: teasing, but not unkind. "You're not supposed to pull back so quick. Look who chickened out this time."   
  
“I didn’t expect you to punch me with the Force,” Baze grumbled. “I should have, though. This is you, after all.”   
  
Chirrut leaned down to kiss Baze's lips, and curl his fingers into his hair, whispering, "You were perfect."   
  
Baze fished around on the floor until he found the rumpled blanket, and then tossed it up over both of them,  content to sleep pressed together like this. “Except I chickened out. Is it like that for you all the time?”

"I've never done _that_ with anyone before," Chirrut explained. "I can sense surface moods and things, sometimes tell when a person is telegraphing their movements. You have to be very close to the person for what we did. Soulmates. The Texts speak of something called a Force bond. I—I don't think we can do that. Jedi stuff. But. Maybe we got pretty close?"   
  
“I couldn’t begin to tell you,” Baze muttered, body wrung out, exhausted—despite the shock of contact, he actually still felt peaceful and easy. Quiet. Like things were soft and sweet between them.   
  
Chirrut tugged the blanket properly around them and giggled as he laid his head down on Baze's chest. "Apparently the Force-bonded can share whole conversions with their minds, so that’s not ideal. You don't need to know what I'm thinking of doing to you most prayer meetings...Baze, are you asleep?"   
  
If he wasn’t, he would be very soon; his breathing was slow and deep and even, and he’d long ago learned to sleep under Chirrut’s heavy weight.   
  
Chirrut huffed. "Rude."   
  
Then he sighed. "Sorry. I talk too much. Go to sleep."   
  
But apparently it didn't bother Baze either way, since his breath was evening out, and, if Chirrut quieted his own mind, he could hear the echo of Baze's mind on his heart. He couldn't tell which of them was more at peace. 


	5. Chapter 5

It was clear that help would be dearly appreciated when Baze saw the house; barely the sort of structure one could call that. Small and assembled out of whatever could be had; corru-steel for a roof over uneven siding made from whatever could be scavenged. It was, unfortunately, the sort of story that was becoming more and more common in NiJedha these days.

Baze drew himself up straight—they couldn’t solve every problem, but this one in front of him, he could do something about, especially with Chirrut beside him.

He knocked on the door—carefully—mindful of his strength against its apparent instability. Three polite taps to summon the people from within.

Baze felt very strange to be fully kitted in his dark robes; black over white, though he hasn’t earned the red of Guardians yet. He’s glad to have someone more respectable at his back when one of the two children open the door; brown skinned and dark eyed, messy hair hanging half in his face.

"You c-can't come in. Mum says she already paid you," said the little boy fiercely, looking afraid but determined. "Dad's g-gonna be home soon. He'll sort you."

Chirrut could tell the boy was lying about that last statement, which only moved him the more. "I assure you, we are not here to collect anything. We are from the Temple, to help. My name is Chirrut Îmwe. Is your mother at home?"

Baze’s heart broke a little—how many stories like this were there in the city? A hundred? A thousand. He crouched down, to be less intimidating, to arrive at the boy’s level, introducing himself. “I’m Baze.”

“So?” the boy’s fierce facade looked brittle but didn’t crack. He looked back and forth between the two men at his door to size them up. “Why are you here?”

“Your mother’s name, Pratyeka Rook, is in our book of people seeking aid,” Baze said. The boy’s wrists were thin; eyes dark in their sockets as well as of iris. Over his shoulder, Baze could see a younger child in old clothes that were as clean as they could be made with only water and soap; he had experience with such things. Baze showed both his palms. “We’d like to offer our help. Can we speak to her?”

The boy hesitated again, shifting from foot to foot. "She's not here right now. Naani is here, though. Are you really from the Temple?"

"We are," Chirrut said. "We are here to help. But we can wait until your mother comes home."

They could easily begin making bricks from the sandy streets. If Pratyeka didn't want to accept their help, certainly someone on the block would.

"N-no," the boy said, peering out at the three of them—Alussa was with them, as well. "You can come in."

He pushed open the door and stood aside. Chirrut laid a hand on Baze's arm, asking him to lead.

Baze took Chirrut’s hand over the top of his own forearm, guiding him carefully into the small, crowded space inside. He had to stoop to keep from hitting his own head on the ceiling, and Chirrut was a near miss in the places where the roof was slanted to direct water off—during the rare monsoon rains that fell on the city.

“What’s your name?” Baze asked, carefully. “And your little sister?”

The boy squared himself up, like he’d been taught to introduce himself with proper posture. “I’m Bodhi, and she’s Karo.”

Baze offered his free hand to the solemn boy to shake it, respectfully.

“And you must be Naani,” he deduced, of an old woman wrapped in a shawl and seated next to the baby. There was a bowl of food in her hands, and she sat motionless. She looked at both Baze and Chirrut with guarded eyes.

“We’re here from the temple,” Baze explained. “We have a...project we’d like to begin.”

It seemed strange, but he looked around the cramped space, and knew that it didn’t keep the damp out in the rain or the cold out in the harshest parts of winter. He wasn’t sure really how to start to say it, so, he dove in. “We’d—and our other brothers at the order—like to build you a new house.”

Bodhi and his little sister gasped, and the grandmother looked suspiciously at them for many moments.

"I know you. Sister Alussa, isn't it?"

Alussa stepped forward. "Ah! Paroma, isn't it? My dear, how are you? You haven't been by for your rheumatism cream in quite some...time."

Alussa realized why, as soon as she said it. "I'll bring you some. A donation from the Temple."

Paroma smiled, taking Alussa's hand. "Bodhi, Karo. Why don't you make our guests some tea?"

Baze guided Chirrut to sit; there were some cushions on the floor, threadbare and lumpy but serviceable enough, and he sat next to him, letting Alussa take the lead.

“Paroma, Brother Baze brought some knowledge with him, and as you know our Brothers and Masters strive to do good for the community when and where possible,” Alussa explained, smiling encouragingly at Bodhi as he fanned up the little fire in the cast iron fireplace to heat the kettle.

Karo distributed little battered ceramic cups to all of them, and Baze cradled his in his hands, determined to do whatever he could for this sweet family.

“There’s a lot of material that gets pulled out with the crystals that the Empire is mining,” Baze said, turning the cup around and around in his hands. “It’s garbage to them, but good for brickmaking. The hardest part of excavation is done. We  thought we should start improving the lives of the people in what ways we can with this opportunity.”

Paroma burst suddenly into tears. Karo rushed to her, and they held each other. "You already are too kind."

Now the baby began to fuss, and Bodhi left his teamaking to pick it up, the child almost as big as he was, he was so skinny.

"May I hold her?" Chirrut asked. The lines of the Force were more vivid now, more solid in here. This child seemed important. Of course they needed to help this family, but the Force had sent them _here_ first.

"She cries a lot," Bodhi explained as he handed the baby—another sister?—off to Chirrut, who smiled as the warm bundle settled in his arms, though still screaming.

"I hear they do that," Chirrut smiled. But now the Force was clearer, and it wasn't coming from the baby. "How old are you, Bodhi?"

"Seven."

"Ah! I would have guessed eight or nine. But I don't see so well, so my guesses are not always right."

This made the boy giggle; the grandmother had recovered enough to say "Tea!" and "Oh!" he yelped, and scurried away, returning to pour tea into the waiting mugs.

"Do you and your sister go to school?" Chirrut asked, rocking the infant in his arms.

"No. We help making rugs with Mum," the boy answered.

"If you could go to school, what would you like to study?"

"Space!" shouted brother and sister at once, now jumping excitedly around the room to pantomime. "Flying!"

Baze gave Chirrut a sidelong smile, as Alussa laughed. The tea warmed his fingers, a weak green color that still smelled okay. Once his hands were warmer, he reached out to nudge one of the baby’s tiny fists with his own, and her small fingers curled around his pointer finger, big enough to fill her whole palm.

 _All is as the Force wills it_ , he thought, and he knew he was supposed to be here. Not just here, in this room, but here, on Jedha. With Chirrut. Doing this.

“Hmm,” Alussa said. “Is that it?”

“Flying in space!” Karo piped up. “Bodhi wants to be a starship pilot.”

Bodhi blushed, looking down and hiding his hands behind his back, muttering, “Like Dad.”

He wasn't sure who to tell, but the boy was wreathed in the Force lines: Chirrut saw a great Destiny before him.

"I think you will be a fine pilot someday," Chirrut agreed. "Maybe don't start too young, though."

When Pratyeka returned, carrying a heavy-looking rug and clutching a small pouch, the children rushed happily into her arms. Naani had begun to snooze, and so had the baby in Chirrut's arms.

"Hello, what's this? Guardians?" she stammered, dipping her head as Baze, Chirrut, and Alussa stood up. "Is this about—did Master Epan Se send you?"

Baze offered a polite bow—he had to stay halfway there to keep his head from hitting the ceiling anyway.

“We found your name in his records,” Baze said, with as much grace as he could manage, given the situation. “I’m Baze, and this is Chirrut and Alussa.”

“They said they’re going to make us a new house!” Karo informed, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

“If—you’d like. It may not be what you need most,” Baze said, apologetically. “But it would help.”

“You—what?” she gasped.

" _I'm_ okay, but sometimes Naani gets cold!" Bodhi added. "Can our new house have places we can climb and jump?"

Chirrut laughed. "Perhaps! Brother Baze has already made our youngest acolytes a structure which they very much enjoy playing on."

He turned in the direction of Pratyeka. "We would be glad to house you in the Temple while we rebuild. It takes only a few days. It won’t be much, but..."

“And I’m sure the acolytes would be happy to make some new friends,” Baze agreed, nodding along with Chirrut. His finger was still trapped in the now-sleeping baby’s fist.

Pratyeka looked overwhelmed, still holding her rug. Alussa moved to take the heavy item from her, and took her hand instead. “Would you like that?”

“Yes,” Pratyeka breathed, shaking her head in disbelief. “Of course, of course—I’m just...”

"Just the first," Chirrut finished for her. "Brother Baze has plans to improve the whole city in this way!"

He was beyond proud, and nudged Baze with an elbow and with the Force.

"Bodhi! Did you offer our guests tea?" Pratyeka said, as if just remembering her manners.

"Already had it, ma'am, don't worry. May we help you pack for your trip to the Temple? If, that is, you want to go. We could come back at a more convenient time," Chirrut offered. "Or if you would like to think it over."

“Please, Mum?” Karo asked, taking hold of her mother’s skirts and looking up at her. “I’ve always wanted to see inside the temple!”

“Of course,” she said, sounding both relieved and disbelieving of her good luck. “I’ll need to repair this rug anyway.”

“I’ll help,” Bodhi promised, already beginning to put their few belongings into a large chest that seemed to contain all of their clothes—which didn’t seem to be very many.

Baze gently disengaged his finger from the baby’s hand, leaving her with Chirrut, and gesturing at the rug Pratyeka was holding. “I’ll carry that, if you wanted to help get things together.”

When she nodded, he hoisted it carefully onto his shoulders, and then moved out of the way—which meant standing outside of the tiny, one-room space. He made a note to build a bedroom for each of them, and see what he could do about beds, as well.

Chirrut followed Baze out, rocking the sleeping baby.

"Baze, how big is this baby?" he hissed. "It can't be more than a few weeks old, can it?"

“Just born,” Baze agreed. “Perhaps a month.”

Which meant the poor mother was _pregnant_ when she visited Epan Se, and put her down for only the two children. The grandmother also hadn't been mentioned. Chirrut was nearly livid.

"We're going to build them the biggest house. And we're going to entomb Epan Se in the w—"

"Master Chirrut, here," said the small girl, and Chirrut had to crouch so Karo could lay an extra blanket—a ratty, filthy thing—on top of the baby.

"Good idea," Chirrut said with a smile.

"Are you blind?"

"Karo!" Bodhi cried, joining his sister. "You can't just ask people if they're blind!"

Chirrut smiled. "No, it's all right. She is correct. I am blind."

"How do you get around?" she squeaked.

"Well. Sometimes I can see the Force of Others, to help me know where they are. And sometimes I just listen carefully. And sometimes my friend Baze here helps me."

Bodhi and Karo looked up at Baze, and they nodded at him. He looked like the sort of person who was helpful.

“Sometimes, he runs into things,” Baze told them, as if in confidence, giving them a smile that they both answer. “But the Force only lets him do that when he deserves it.”

He eased out of the way of Chirrut’s elbow.

“What’s the temple like?” Karo asked.

“How many Guardians are there?” Bodhi put in, unleashing a shower of questions on them, while Baze watched their mother get Naani bundled up, and Alussa helped pack the last of their few possessions into the chest.

“Fewer than there should be,” Baze muttered, under his breath, before he lent Alussa a hand to help her carry the chest up to the temple to help get the family settled in.

Chirrut laughed as the children, deciding they quite liked Baze, hung on him, asking him many questions all the way back to the Temple.

"Alussa, do we think we could give them all a check-up?" Chirrut asked as they lagged behind the procession.

"Way ahead of you, Chirrut. I don't think they had even a midwife for the birth of the child."

“Like I said,” Chirrut hissed to Baze, “ _entombment_.”

...

"Our accommodations are not very comfortable, but there is good plain food and warmth," Chirrut explained, as the family was given a small cell. "We will bring enough beds. There is, of course, one large condition of your staying here."

He could feel Pratyeka tense, and he felt immediately bad about teasing. She dealt with Epan Se, of course she thought he was serious!

So he smiled: "The children must go to lessons while they are here."

The children whined audibly, but Pratyeka sighed in relief.

"How are you going to be pilots like your Abo if you cannot read, children?" she admonished.

“There will be lots of other children about your age,” Baze promised. He set down their trunk, and passed the rug off to Alussa, who settled it on top of their belongings. He crouched down and confided, “and our lessons aren’t terribly serious.”

The children reacted to his wink with smiles.

“Of course, you can settle in tonight without worrying,” Alussa said. “I’ll bring you all some food and tea.”

“Do we have something that will work as a crib?” Baze asked.

“She can sleep with me,” Pratyeka says, reaching to take the baby gently from Chirrut’s arms. “This is already so much more than we’re used to. “

"Certainly we can find a crib. Alussa, we'll fetch the food. I think this family is due a healer's visit," Chirrut said, and when he and Baze had excused themselves, Chirrut's face took on a dark look. "I'm going to find Epan Se, and I'm going to send him to the Force _today_."

He didn't _really_ mean that, though. "No, I'm sorry. Let's get the tea and then—maybe I want to go haul dirt for the bricks. Until I'm too exhausted to kill him."

"What was it he said?" Baze tried to remember. "Every mother of three that needed help...?"

The very thought made Baze furious. He wanted to grind his teeth and stomp over to Epan Se's chambers and wring the man's neck.

"I'm not sure if all the bricks it will take to build the house will be enough," Baze growled.

Chirrut swept Baze into his arms and gave him a searing kiss, out in the courtyard in front of everyone. "They will be enough. And if they're not, we just keep building. And we just—don't let him handle the community outreach anymore. He wants to pray all day? We'll let him!"


	6. Chapter 6

The process of making bricks is calming. Therapeutic. First the mix; mud, water, stone. Then the work of making it even; stirring the thick mixture until it was even and consistent. Forms next; the little boxes that the cement packed into, shaking and thumping until the air bubbles were all out of it. It worked on Baze’s frustration, helping to ease out of him the woes and worries of his recent anger. He thought of Epan Se as he slammed the forms against the ground, and the Empire when he turned the bricks out. 

Perhaps there would be enough anger to reconstruct the entire city, if these two sources kept up their constant influx of irritating behaviors.

Epan Se had protested their choice and the housing of the family inside the temple. The Empire had been suspicious of the monks’ repurposing of the garbage they were otherwise content to pile everywhere around and in the city. 

But the bricks behaved, and the children deeply enjoyed the expenditure of energy. Thumping and slamming the brick forms and then watching them dry in the sun; tearing down the old structure of the house and carefully preserving anything of value. The house came down in two easy motions—over, and then flat.

“Chirrut,” Baze called, pulling the other monk away from the swinging hammer of an overly enthusiastic acolyte. “Have you found a place for all that garbage to go?” 

“Even better,” Chirrut answered, tapping his way over to Baze, with Bodhi holding his hand. The small boy was quiet, but unbelievably bright: he reminded Chirrut in many ways of Baze, except much smaller. Less mean. “Bodhi here has an idea. Go on, young man.”

“Well, if we could, you know, somehow mush it all up,” Bodhi explained carefully, with the attitude of a child for whom nothing was impossible though everything was difficult, “melt it down. It might make a good door!” 

“Or,” Chirrut prompted, clearly favoring the second idea. 

“Oh! Yes! Or we could crush it up and mix it with the bricks!” 

Chirrut beamed in Baze’s direction, smelling his sweat even at this distance. He had taken his own shirt off, after all, with the sun and the hard work. “There. I think that’s a great idea. So the question becomes, Brother Baze, do we have a way to crush the rubble and transform it into something more useful?” 

“It could double the number of bricks!” Bodhi cried, now bouncing with excitement. “We could build more houses! We could build a  _ slide _ !” 

Probably there was not  _ that  _ much extra rubble, but Chirrut admired the boy’s spirit. He also secretly agreed that a slide would be the best allocation of their resources. Some of the acolytes gathered around, hoping Baze would agree.

Baze had listened without revealing anything on his features—it seemed to be his best talent, holding his opinion in reserve until he’d heard the whole idea. He looked at the remains of the old house—dirty straw and some corrugated metal, and thought about the logistics of it. The beams were unsturdy enough that they would have to find new service as something in a different shape. 

He turned his slow gaze to Bodhi’s bright one, and then a smile slowly quirked one corner of his mouth up, answered instantly with Bodhi’s own brilliant smile.

“I think we can use the straw and hay that was serving as thatching to heat the metal,” Baze said, measuring out his words. “And then the stones that were the floor can serve two purposes—they’ll get crushed for more brick. The biggest ones will serve for something different. I’ll need you to sort them.”

“I can do that!” Bodhi cried excitedly, whipping up the other children into a frenzied cheer. Maybe the energetic Bodhi was not very much like his steady Baze, except in how creatively they thought. Still. 

Chirrut helped sort the children in their sorting tasks, and found his way back to Baze, rubbing his shoulders. 

“You're too angry to be doing charity work, brother,” he said softly. “I can feel it in your shoulders. The Force cares as much about our intention as our actions.”

“The anger is fuel,” Baze answered, gruffly. “Burning off the toxic things is much like destroying that old hay to create something new.”

Chirrut grinned wickedly. “Now which book and chapter is that from?” 

Baze had tests coming up, soon, after all. 

Actually stopping to consider, digging through his ponderous memories of reading, Baze can discard some of the anger in favor of trying to find the right book and the right chapter. He sighed at last. “I believe I can remember the next passage; ‘Carry your intentions into your actions, carry your actions out of your intentions.’ As to which of the forty books that I’ve read this year that it came from…”

He admitted defeat with a rough shrug, scratching his nails against the back of his neck and leaving a trail in the grime and sweat. 

“That's right,” Chirrut encouraged, but didn't give away the rest of the answer. He was sure Baze would get it eventually. Perhaps when anger—however justified—was no longer clouding his judgement.

“I don’t think the Force cares how I make bricks,” Baze said. “It clearly does not care how hard Epan Se fights against allowing me to do this at all. He was in Sidhava’s chambers for nearly an hour this morning.” 

“Oh,  _ him, _ ” Chirrut grumbled. “Master Sidhava knows how to handle him. And for the record, it was you who said we shouldn't jump him in a back alley and teach him a lesson.”

This last bit was  _ mostly _ teasing.

“Well, anyway. Got any jobs for a blind mule to do? Do we need more water yet?”

Baze hummed a bar of ‘the old grey mare’ in teasing amusement, and then considered the workers in the yard. Alussa was supervising the piling of old straw into the big, heavy furnace so that the corrusteel could be melted down into something more useful. Nan-In, between bouts of staring at her as if she were the only thing he ever wanted to look at, was helping line up the formed bricks to dry in the sun and air.

It was, overall, a peaceful picture of industry. 

“You can help us smack bricks,” Baze decided, reaching out a clay-covered hand and gathering Chirrut’s hands into his own, smearing him with mortar. “Come tomorrow you can help us plot the lines for the first walls. It’s going much faster than I thought.”

“Wonderful!” Chirrut said, letting himself be led, covered in mud up to the elbows, and instructed in the smacking of bricks. “You're a marvel, Baze.” 

It was straightforward work, and a good task for Chirrut to do, as long as no one got their hands under his. 

One acolyte decided to make it a game, trying to dodge Chirrut’s lightning-quick strikes, and lucky for him, Chirrut was aware of him at the last second and pulled his hit just enough to leave a bruise rather than break his knuckles. 

“Those who play with fire mustn't shed tears when it burns them,” he told the boy, after making sure his hands were okay. “Now go on back to the Temple and do some reading. You can help us again tomorrow.”

He sighed as the acolyte ran off, feeling wounded pride and anger. He didn't mind: unlike the Jedi, the Guardians felt that emotion was healthy, and Chirrut wasn't offended. He was only a little worried that Epan Se might be told, and blow it out of proportion. 

He shook his head and went back to work, feeling the sun warm his neck and shoulders from low in the sky. Was it nearing sundown?

Baze worked side by side with Chirrut, quietly focused on lining the bricks up in the sun to dry. As the evening came on, he reached out to still Chirrut’s efforts, finishing the last of the bricks and looking over at Alussa and Nan-in, who had poured the metal into a form constructed out of compressed clay for the door, and he smiled. They would find some way to create a slide—and maybe some swings. As a child, he’d always liked swings.

“I feel like I’ve done the work of a whole team of oxen,” Baze said, groaning as he got up and all of his muscles felt stiff and sore. “And Bodhi has done even more than I.”

The boy was practically  nodding off in his mother’s arms, having eaten the dinner she brought down from the temple for them. Baze stretched his body, and helped Chirrut up. “That’s it for today. You’ve earned your new title; Master Brick Hands. We’d better sleep, we have to come back tomorrow and I can feel all of my scars trying to contract.” 

“Baze,” Chirrut cooed, rubbing his back before Baze slipped his shirt back on. “Yes, let’s go home. I want to eat a whole team of oxen’s worth of food, and then give you a massage and fall asleep on top of you.” 

“Does anyone need to be carried?” he asked Baze, wondering if any of the children were straggling. “How’s Karo? What, or whom, can I carry?”

“Karo just appeared to help her mother,” Baze assured him. “Lessons must be over for the day. I think Pratyeka and Karo have Bodhi but… we have a youngster down of our own.”

Baze found one of the youngest acolytes, covered in dust and sleeping softly, deeply, tucked in behind the orderly stack of tools where Baze had left her in charge of keeping track of where everything was. 

“You may carry this,” he told Chirrut, hoisting the girl into his arms and then transferring her to Chirrut’s, before he rounded up the rest of the acolytes. “You’d all better wash up before we go to dinner.”

A chorus of groans answered, but Baze bet they’d listen anyway.

“Everyone did wonderful work today,” Chirrut praised, as they wound their way back. He tucked his staff under his arm so it hovered a few paces in front of him, mere centimeters off the ground. “Isn’t this much more fun than studying indoors?” 

“ _ Actually _ , Master Chirrut…” a few of the small ones began, and Chirrut laughed.   

“Yes, I think we should enlist some of the bigger brothers and sisters to join us, tomorrow, hm? Make Master Epan Se stir the mud.”

This got a chorus of tittering from the children. 

“He wouldn’t do that! He’s too prissy!” someone shouted, and now Chirrut laughed loud enough to wake the girl in his arms. 

“Master Chirrut, is it supper time, yet? I was praying  _ all day _ for supper,” she asked, melodramatically. 

Chirrut patted her head. “I don’t know, you tell me. What do we smell?” 

She sniffed. “You’re sweaty and dirty, Master Chirrut.” 

“True. But past that. Be open to the Force.” 

“Through my  _ nose _ , Master Chirrut?” She tried again, as they walked up the Temple steps, and giggled suddenly. “I smell mushrooms! But not through the Force! Just through my nose!” 

“Then the nose is a wonderful gift in the Force, is it not?” He set her down, and she ran off to the supper queue. 

“My nose and the Force both tell me that we should skip the line by heading to the baths,” Baze said, tucking his arm over Chirrut’s to lead him up the steps and into the temple proper.

Chirrut let himself be led: the first thing to go for him in the process of exhaustion was always his ability to sense the world around him, and Baze never led him astray.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More smut. 
> 
> What does Chirrut have to complain about, honestly?

A herd of dirty and mud-covered acolytes thundered past, and Baze supposed his warning about the bath was already well and truly forgotten. He sighed and guided his destiny toward the bathing area, and he was barely in sight of the water before he began to pry his mud-stiff robes off his body. 

“I’m glad that cleanliness is not one of our sacrifices to the will of the Force,” Baze admitted, reaching out for Chirrut to pull him in after. “Nor backrubs.”

“Me, too,” Chirrut agreed, taking off his clothes in an exhausted tangle and joining Baze in the soothing water. “Though I can't imagine any religion requiring such asceticism.”

He leaned into Baze, not bothering to wait until he was clean to kiss him. 

Baze cupped his dusty hands under Chirrut’s chin and tilted his face up, leaning their mouths together in an easy kiss—as if they’d been doing it for a hundred years already. It went long and slow and soft, and then Baze locked his arms around Chirrut’s shoulders and dropped them both over backwards into the water with a splash, before coming up grinning, and dunking the sputtering Chirrut again when he was sure that he’d caught his breath.

“Argh,” Chirrut grunted, grabbing Baze by the hair and baptizing him in retaliation. “I know where you sleep.”

But by then Baze was back to nuzzling and kissing him sweetly, and Chirrut couldn't stay offended even for a moment.

“Thank you for reminding me to mind my anger,” Baze said, as they untangled, and he reached for the soap.

Chirrut shrugged. “I feel like you keep me to my own advice, too. Which I otherwise wouldn't do. Epan Se will rue the day he manages to piss both of us off properly at the same time.”

“I don’t suppose he might die of anal retention one of these days very soon,” Baze muttered, lathering the soap between his hands and then reaching out to apply it to Chirrut’s slightly-less-dust-encrusted back, working to get him clean and give him a massage at the same time. “No, I suppose that would be too lucky.”

He sighed, enjoying the feel of the warm water around them and the way he could feel Chirrut’s muscles slowly unknotting themselves. 

“I think the Force wouldn't test us with him and then let us off so easily,” Chirrut grinned, warming like putty in Baze's hands. He hummed, and said, when it felt like Baze was finished, “Thank you, brother. My turn?”

Baze pressed soap and sponge to his hands, and he built lather up before starting with Baze’s hair and working his way down his shoulders and back. “Do we have any hair oil?”

“Are you saying I need it?” Baze mused, sweeping a hand through his hair, frizzy and starting to lock from the sun and mud of the day. He made a thoughtful noise. “You’re right. Let me see if the other masters left us any. Alussa has been making judicious use…”

He looked through his usual hiding place in one of the bushes near the edge of the bathing pool, and came up with a bottle containing a scant half inch, pressing it into Chirrut's hands to see what use he can make of it.

“I mean, I just scrubbed it with the harshest soap on Jedha, so, yes, your hair needs it,” Chirrut said, oiling his palms and running them through Baze’s hair. “Mm, we’re running out of hours in the day for me to do things to you. I want to braid your hair, but that will have to come after your massage and after supper. We’ll see.” 

Chirrut continued scrubbing down Baze’s body, and when he stopped, he asked with a wry smile, “There, did I miss anything?” 

“Nothing you can see,” Baze answered, teasing. He pulled Chirrut against him for a kiss, but then the stampede of freshly fed acolytes rounded the bend in the hall, and they surrendered the bath to those in more dire need.

“We'd best eat, love, if the herd has left anything but a wasteland in the kitchen,” Baze said, as he finished toweling off and pulled on a fresh robe. “Whoever is on laundry duty tomorrow will have words for us, I think.”

“I’d gladly trade with someone who’d rather build bricks all day,” Chirrut answered smugly, and dodged acolytes as they ran shrieking and splashing into the water. 

“Careful, careful,” Chirrut called, and he and Baze were obliged to sit and make sure no one drowned, wrapping themselves in the sheets by the baths and dropping their dirty robes in a laundry chute when they finally felt it was safe to leave. 

“Ooh, it’s cold. Let’s just get a bowl of whatever’s left and go back to our room,” Chirrut begged, leaning into Baze so he would lead him to the kitchens. 

“It’s always cold,” Baze said, but he didn't disagree, leading Chirrut as if they were only walking together, arm in arm.

They got bowls of the thin, brothy remains of the soup, and carried them carefully up to their shared cell, the warmth of Baze’s small heater reaching out to embrace them as they entered, and Baze sighed as he settled onto the floor immediately to eat his dinner. It seemed to disappear almost too quickly, but it was hot and filled his belly with warmth and there was always breakfast in the morning.

Chirrut finished his broth just as fast, without even bothering to sit down, and then he stacked their bowls by the door and drank a full mug of water in one pull.

Baze leaned back on his hands, and wondered how long this could go on. “What will happen when we run out of Kyber, I wonder?”

“Maybe the Empire will leave us alone,” Chirrut said, plopping down in Baze’s lap. “And we’ll live happily ever after.” 

He sighed and kissed Baze’s neck. “Get on the bed. Time for your massage.” 

Baze rose and picked them both up, setting Chirrut on his feet and then stretching himself out flat on the bed, groaning.

“It feels good to be off my feet,” he said, gripping the frame of the bed and trying to stretch himself out some.

“Oh, yes, we'll start with some stretches,” Chirrut agreed, and started with Baze’s arms, using his considerable strength to move and bend him, always staying on this side of painful. He had him lie on his back to do his legs, and moved these into back stretches.Baze allowed himself to be pressed and molded, to have the scars in his shoulders stretched and his back, until they loosened again and eased—and he was glad of Chirrut’s strength for these things. He never once protested, breathing deep and even and trust fully extended even as they skirted along the edge of pain, it always eased nearly immediately.

“I'll need to practice some forms after you sleep. Ready for your massage? On your front.”

Chirrut had a new vial of massage oil: they did this a lot. 

Baze went over onto his back easy, and then reached up and hooked a hand loosely around the back of Chirrut’s head and kissed him. 

“You’re too good to me, you know,” he said. “I expect you’ll take care of my wounds forever, now.” 

“As long as you promise there won’t be any new ones,” Chirrut said, and went back for another kiss before turning Baze out on his front and working the massage oil into his back. 

“Do you know I…” Chirrut began, and then stopped, shook his head, and laughed at himself, face flushing instantly. “No, never mind, it’s morbid!”

But now he’d mentioned it, he couldn’t take it back. 

“I mean I—like you teach the children to do with the clouds—finding shapes and patterns? I—” There were lots of patterns and textures across Baze’s back and arms, especially, though really scars all over his body spoke of his rough life, not least of which were his months in slavery. “N-not that I mean to make light of your pain, or even find it beautiful. It’s just...part of you. Interesting texture. Force, is that horrible?” 

Chirrut stopped working the oil into Baze’s back to hide his face in his now-pungent-smelling hands. “It’s weird! Forget I said anything!” 

“It’s not horrible,” Baze rumbled, rolling over beneath Chirrut and feeling much better. “The scars are part of me. I’m glad they don’t repulse you.”

“No, never!” Chirrut promised. “Sometimes they make me  _ worry _ …”

Baze reached up to pull Chirrut’s hands away from his face and link their fingers together. “You’ve always been weird and I’ve never ignored you.” 

“I take it back,” Chirrut huffed, but he relaxed, glad that Baze wasn’t offended or put-off. Chirrut gave Baze a long kiss and then lowered him back to the cot. 

“This one on your shoulder,” he mused, running the pad of his finger gently over a series of marks high on his back, “feels like a butterfly. I don’t get to touch many butterflies, however, so this is a guess. And down here, along your ribs, a house. Not as good as the ones we are building, more of a hovel, really, but..” 

He trailed off, grinning. 

Baze covered Chirrut’s hand with his own, lifting the fingers to his mouth and pressing his mouth to the rough pad. With feigned utmost seriousness, he said, “Funny you should say those two things. My name means “Butterfly Hovel’.”

His grin gave him away utterly. “Besides, all my heart needs is a hovel, if you're the one protecting it.”

“Ah, you’re teasing me!” Chirrut laughed, fingers brushing Baze’s lips so he could feel his grin. “Ugh, and you’re much better at romance than I am. I was going to say something like, ‘A hovel is all we need, if we are together,’ but yours is much sweeter.”

Chirrut sighed, focusing on massaging Baze’s tight muscles and easing through the scar tissue. There  _ were _ a lot of them, and Chirrut mostly only played these games to keep from feeling pity for Baze that he did not want. 

“Here, this one,” he said after a few moments, pressing his thumb to Baze’s side. “I shudder to think what caused it, but it’s almost a flower, now. With one petal missing, like you’ve already said  _ he loves me  _ and haven’t got to the _ he loves me not _ part yet.” 

“It’s one of the older ones,” Baze observed. “And I  _ haven’t _ gotten to the ‘he loves me not’ part yet.”

“Good,” Chirrut said, leaning in for a kiss. “Don’t you ever dare.”

He felt better, far better and looser than when he’d first laid down at Chirrut’s mercy. Finally, done with being molded and prodded, he pulled Chirrut down against his chest and began to rub his back in return, first his shoulders, then the curve of his lower back.

Yawning, Baze made a thoughtful noise and then slid his hands even lower, gripping Chirrut’s ass. “How can I repay the favor, I wonder?” 

“Hey, you—oh, ooh, ow—” Chirrut grunted, seizing against Baze’s chest. He was always tight in every muscle—anyone would be if they spent most of their days trying to navigate the world without seeing it, and trying to make it look effortless. A laugh burst out of Chirrut as Baze’s hands wandered lower. “No, you’re supposed to keep me company while I do some stretching poses—Baze, let me up!” he demanded when Baze did not immediately relent, but with all the protest of a child who did not want to be tickled. 

“You’d rather do forms?” Baze wondered aloud, and then lifted his hands away, to let Chirrut up. He yawned again, as Chirrut lifted himself off, and then watched with relaxed, appreciative eyes as Chirrut began to run through the forms, stretching and limbering himself.

“You’re teasing me now,” Baze accused, as Chirrut practically folded himself in half, ass toward him. “I should fall asleep, out of spite.” 

“Don't do that,” Chirrut complained. “Once I am physically able, I should like to ravish you.”

He grinned and moved through another round, meditating on Baze's sweet form, if not on his own forms. Then he finally asked, “How is my teasing?”

“Effective,” Baze said, watching the easy strength and flexibility write itself in lines over Chirrut’s alluring body. His chest and belly were a sculpted work of art, and Baze knew intimately how it felt against his own skin.

Chirrut grinned, and began stripping off further layers, until he was wearing only his wrapped underclothes.

“I may start without you,” Baze teased, but he was palming himself through his robes, encouraging his cock to full hardness in a lazy and still patient sort of way.

“If you’re going to start without me, you might find me a condom and start stretching  _ yourself _ , brother,” Chirrut said, dropping into a full splits, groaning softly into the ache. “Unless I’m giving you other ideas?” 

“I have plenty of ideas,” Baze said, easing his hand under his robes to stroke himself slowly. “You’re the one doing forms. Do you intend to stand on your head while we have congress? I’d be impressed…”

“Ha!” Chirrut laughed. “Might be the only way to breach your tight ass.”

Baze sighed out, shifting on the cot so Chirrut could hear, letting out a low, pleasured sigh and watching Chirrut’s attention waver at a crucial moment of balance so he had to catch himself. “Unless  _ I’m _ giving  _ you _ other ideas…” 

“Force kriffing damn you,” Chirrut finally swore, because he could  _ smell _ him, and he was on the bed in an instant, stripping Baze of his trousers in a fluid motion. “Let's see how you like distractions when you're reciting the verses you're supposed to be learning for the third doan.”

Without any warning, Chirrut pushed Baze's knees back and got the head of his cock in his mouth (after misjudging the distance only once). 

He grinned and enjoyed this, but at the first noise from Baze he pulled off and said, “Oh, and I won't let you come until you get them all correct. Where's the oil?”

“Maybe I should have just gone to sleep,”  Baze laughed, but he passed Chirrut the little container, pressing it into his fingers and then groaning as he did something clever with his tongue. “I feel like this might backfire. All the verses will—nnnghh—invariably attach themselves to the Book of Desire in my thoughts.”

He didn’t get any mercy, however, and asked none, instead arching his body and sighing out, gathering his patience and trying to keep his thoughts together. 

“I’m not sure how you plan to ask any questions like—”

“If I’m asking questions, you’re already in trouble,” Chirrut laughed, sitting up now that he had the oil, and tucking his legs under Baze’s legs so he could massage a slicked finger over his entrance. “Come on, it’s only fourteen lines. Not even in the original Old Jedhan. And we  _ should _ sleep at some point tonight!” 

Chirrut’s grin was positively wolfish, as he continued to stroke Baze’s cock with one hand while the other continued the perianal massage. 

“Only you would expect scripture when you were fucking someone,” Baze sighed, heavy with pleasure and shaking his damp hair out of his eyes.

“Very well,” he said, then went quiet for a long time, finding his thoughts heartily stirred by Chirrut’s slick fingers. “‘The Force guides my actions and the actions of the world around me, like a flowing river carves slowly through stone. Listen to it,’ or something.”

Chirrut hummed. Baze sounded largely coherent. He would need to work harder.

“Yes, very good. Listen to it what?” he asked, as he slipped a finger inside Baze, still stroking his cock. 

Baze growled faintly, not from the sting. He reached down to try and get ahold of Chirrut's cock in turn, figuring turnabout for fair play. If he could focus to answer, this would perhaps stop the questions another way.

“Guidance,” Baze said, “Guidelines? No. ‘It will  _ guide  _ you, at times in many directions. Consider each answer.’” 

“ _ Beautiful _ ,” Chirrut hummed, and slapped Baze’s hand away from his cock. “Nah-ah. You know I get off on just the sound of your voice reciting verses.” 

He grinned,  _ mostly  _ joking. 

“‘The Force guides my actions and the actions of the world around me, like a flowing river carves slowly through stone. Listen to it and it will guide you, at all times and in many directions. Consider each answer, and’…?” Chirrut prompted, waiting until Baze took a breath to go on before crooking his finger toward Baze’s belly, the pad of his finger finding his prostate unerringly. 

Baze gasped and arched, clawing at the mattress, and he had to bite back on a swear— _ definitely  _ not doctrine.

“‘Consider each answer,’” he rumbled when he could catch his breath, with Chirrut still pressing and stirring against the gland inside him, “and kill the person asking questions.”

Chirrut chuckled evilly. “I’m pretty positive that’s not it.” 

He let Baze writhe and moan and enjoy, without harassing him further, and continued stroking and massaging him until he felt and heard that Baze was close to orgasm—and stopped. 

“Consider each answer, and what?” 

“ _ Kriff,”  _ Baze didn't hold it back this time, but he did rattle the cot frame with his protest, reaching up to wrestle Chirrut over in his frustration, struggling strength against strength until they both wound up on the floor, still entangled, but now with Baze on top.

“Hey!” Chirrut cried. 

Baze leaned down and bit Chirrut’s ear. It is an answer he had considered. “‘Consider each answer and  _ align _ it against who you are.’”

Baze followed this by aligning their cocks in his fist, ignoring the fact that they've wound up on the floor in favor of trying to keep Chirrut on even footage of cognition.

Chirrut huffed as Baze brought him to the floor, and let him take the upper hand—for now, especially when his rough hand felt so good over his cock. 

“Kriff. Baze! You—” here he grinned, “—you don’t think  _ I _ can do it? ‘Consider each answer and align it against who you are, so you can determine the will of the Force for you. You must know yourself before you know the Force, but you cannot be  _ in _ yourself to know the Force.’ How’s that? ‘Remember where you’—ohh.”

Chirrut dropped his head back with a groan, losing his own place. 

“I know  _ you _ can do it,” Baze grunted, stroking faster, and then lifting his hips over Chirrut’s, pressing him flat against the floor with one hand pinning his chest, and the other in tandem with Chirrut’s guiding Chirrut’s cock as he lifted himself over and into place.

It stung as he began to press, but he could take it slow, get his knees as wide as he needed.

“You’re insufferable,” Baze said, with great warmth and affection.

“Ah, fuck!” Chirrut swore, bucking up against Baze’s weight, but not into him. He hadn’t really stretched him properly, and didn’t want to hurt him. Gasping and grinning, and almost helpless with how good this felt, he said, “You really are—y-you really are  _ tight _ .” 

If he wanted Baze to continue at all, he quite spoiled it by hauling him into a biting kiss. 

It was tight, but it eased in the space of the kiss, melting from stiff to sweet, though today, Chirrut felt like so  _ much _ , in both presence and penetration, and Baze had to groan out the excess into the kiss.

Then, finally, they settled together, still kissing, and waiting, listening to the Force together. After a moment, Baze straightened his back some, rocking his hips slowly, feeling like this could almost be enough this time.

“Love you,” Chirrut said, he had to say, because it was true, and because Baze was probably going to kill him otherwise as he closed his hand around the base of his cock. “And I said I wasn’t going to let you come until you finished the verses. ‘You cannot be in yourself to know the Force’...” 

“You,” Baze answered, his tone menacing, groaning complaint at Chirrut’s merciless resolve to get him through this repetition of his memorization. “Are about to figure out what it feels like to be in yourself.”

Chirrut did not seem like he was about to relent, so Baze rocked a little harder, digging his nails in. “‘You have to be in the Force to know yourself.’” 

“Good, good,” Chirrut said, relenting just a little, and rolling his hips until he heard Baze gasp. “Just one more sentence, my love. Then I want you to come all over me. Try to forget  _ that _ , hm?” 

He was teasing, knowing he was making Baze’s job harder— _ heh _ —more than he was actually helping, but Baze was smart, and he didn’t need help. “You feel so good. You  _ are _ so good.”

“I love you,” Baze finally told him back, peering down at Chirrut’s serene and satisfied face through nearly-closed eyes. His tone was stark and almost ironic, but he still meant his words, even as Chirrut did his best to steamroll the rest out of him.

What was that last part?  _ Reject _ ? 

Baze gasped, feeling how near he was. “‘Reject fear; trust the Force.’” 

“Yes. Good. Come for me,” Chirrut said, massaging his thumb over the slit and arching up to hit his prostate so Baze would come apart in his arms. 

He did; he did every time Chirrut asked it of him, and this time it was eager and near and ready, and Baze ground down against Chirrut in the hopes of dragging the other man with him and over the edge into orgasm. He  _ should _ force Chirrut to recite his lessons too, but he lost track instead, before leaning down to kiss Chirrut on the mouth; slowly, softly, sweetly.

Chirrut came, too, at the first clench of Baze around him, somehow, impossibly, tighter, and at the spurt of come on his chest that he really wanted to lick up. 

Baze bit his other ear. “You’re a terrible monk.” 

He had the energy to sound affronted at this accusation, though he only squeaked at Baze's teeth on his ear. “I'm an excellent monk. I practiced my forms and made you practice your verses. Now, I might be a mean  _ boyfriend… _ ”

Chirrut sighed and rested his head back. “I suppose I will give up on my goal to fuck you and blow you at the same time, since it's rude to practice forms before bed, apparently…”

Baze jabbed him gently in the ribs just to make him jump, and then sighed out, keeping his own chest out of the mess as he caught his breath, before he leaned over and fished the clean cloth out of the basin to begin tidying them up.

“Since when did you care about being rude?” Baze wondered. “ _ I _ care about you somehow putting your back out attempting some ridiculous sexual act and then having to explain that to Master Taia or Alussa…” 

“I wouldn't hurt myself!” Chirrut protested, pulling Baze against his chest after he was cleaned up. “I probably need a longer cock, but it's something we could definitely try. Later.”

Now, Chirrut was exhausted. “Let's make tonight the night we get rid of the cot and just sleep on the floor. You can sleep on me.”

Baze shoved Chirrut down without protest and settled over on his side so he could reach up and yank the blankets off the bed, over both of them. He might not thank Chirrut in the morning (and if he heard any more taunts about remembering his lines, he would certainly wrestle his overly wily Destiny into some sort of stranglehold), but for now they were both worn out enough to sleep.

Only they didn’t get the chance. 


	8. Chapter 8

There was a faint scuffle at the door, like a womp rat had grown opposable thumbs and was trying to figure out their door. Chirrut froze, pressing one finger to Baze’s lips, and listened. 

“I told you! They’re asleep!” came a child’s whisper, and Chirrut took a moment to place it as Bodhi. What was he doing? 

“We should try, anyway!” said the girl—Karo. 

He soon found out  _ why _ they were being accosted in the middle of the night, because there was a low rumble of thunder, and Karo gave a muffled screech. Chirrut had to laugh, because it was so cute, and also because he and Baze hadn’t even noticed the thunder rolling in. 

“You may come in,” Chirrut called, a smile on his face. 

“Chirrut,” Baze hissed, lashing out for his undergarments as his whole body went tense. He found Chirrut’s first and slapped him in the face with them, hoping he’d get the hint, before he pulled on his own even as he kept his eyes trained on the latch.

He, at least, was mostly decent—if wrapped entirely in blankets—by the time the kids crept in, eyes big and clutching blankets to themselves. He sighed, feeling his resolve instantly weaken.

“Are you kids alright?” he asked, knowing his comfortable night with Chirrut (on the floor?) was about to take a turn. 

“Bodhi, Karo,” Chirrut tried to say sternly, though he was smiling. He was ignoring the clothes Baze threw at him. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you asleep? What would your mother say?” 

“Mum’s with the baby,” Karo sniffled, hiding against her brother’s coat. She seemed expert in sounding pathetic. 

“And Karo’s afraid of the storm,” Bodhi supplied, but when thunder cracked sharply overhead, the boy definitely flinched, too. 

“Well, it’s a good thing we have an extra cot to sleep on,” Chirrut said, making getting to his feet not seem at all a strain as he wrapped the sheet around himself. “Baze, is there a light on? I will get some blankets.” 

The children cheered and crowded into the room, already pulling off their shoes and coats. 

Baze hoisted himself up, also taking one of their blankets, more for heat than modesty, and going over to shake the lantern in one corner of the room until it turned on, and then he lowered the light to a steady glow that wouldn’t disturb them, but would comfort the children.

“Will your mother be alright with the baby?” Baze asked, and Bodhi nodded, with an earnest expression. Baze put one of the blankets around Karo’s shoulders when Chirrut returned with them, and then gave her hands a reassuring squeeze, feeling how small they are against his palms. “You’re safe here. This temple has seen very many thunderstorms. And I saw Chirrut kick lightning right out of the sky, once.”

“Ah, Baze, you promised me you wouldn’t tell anyone!” Chirrut grinned, finding a space to sit near the opposite end of the cot from Baze, so he could wrap an arm around...this must be Karo, judging from the size. She swung her feet off the edge of the bed. 

“Really, Master Chirrut?” she asked, sweetly, but just as Chirrut was about to continue, she added: “Only I’m not scared of the lightning. It’s the thunder!”

“Ah. But are you sure that’s not just the sound of Brother Baze farting?” 

This sent Bodhi into hysterics, though he had the sense to try to cover his mouth as he giggled. 

“Truly legendary,” Baze agreed, though he made a note to get Chirrut back for that. Later. “I learned that with the second Doan.”

“You didn’t!” Karo scolded. 

Baze grinned at her, as if she’d caught him telling a fib. 

“I wish I did have that power,” Baze sighed. “It would have come in handy when I fought that giant bird for Chirrut’s honor.”

“Oohh,” said the siblings, and Chirrut could hear them physically turning away from him and towards Baze for the full story. 

“Tell us about that!”

“How giant was it?”

“Did you eat its giant eggs and that's why you can fart so big?”

Chirrut was  _ dying  _ as he tried not to laugh too hard.

“Mainly, I think it’s the overabundance of fiber in our diets here,” Baze said, deadpan, but the kids didn’t buy the truth. 

“The bird, tell us about the bird!”

“Alright, well,” Baze said. “At the top of the mountain on the far edge of the plains, there was a huge bird. Big enough to carry me!”

Baze spread out his arms wide, but it wasn’t big enough. “Bigger than this. I’m sure it wanted to carry Chirrut off and feed him to its babies somewhere.”

“He's telling it all wrong!” Chirrut finally butted in. “It was going to take  _ Baze _ away. He's much bigger, you see. Who would want to eat me? I'd be so tough and gamey. And I cracked it's beak with a rock and it flew away!”

Bodhi and Karo looked back and forth between the two monks now, unsure who to believe. 

“I was holding it’s feet,” Baze says, rolling his eyes. “Look, I have a scar.”

He demonstrates the back of his arm, and then realizes he’ll have to point it out. It is the worst one on the back of his arm, but certainly not the only one. “I held the bird off so Chirrut could complete his seventh doan. And don’t let Chirrut tell you it was the Force.”

“But it was! The Force provided you, Brother Baze!”

Karo was frowning, and said, deadpan, “ _ No one's _ ever going to believe you if you don't get your stories straight.”

“Don't your mum get mad for arguing with your brother?” Bodhi asked.

Chirrut swallowed a laugh.  _ Brother _ ? Well, at least this way they won't get any awkward questions. “You're right. We  _ do _ get in trouble for arguing. Mostly with each other. But our mum knows all of the ten thousand forms, so she's very formidable when angry.”

Karo was satisfied by this answer, and laid down, snuggling into the piles of blankets and putting her feet on her brother's side of the bed. Bodhi didn't seem to mind, but neither did he seem tired.

Baze made space for both of them, by easing off of the cot and onto the ground, stifling a yawn. “Well, we told you a story. Now it’s your turn.”

Bodhi made a face, looking at Baze as if he was crazy. “Kids don’t tell stories.”

Baze arched his eyebrows. “They tell stories all the time, here. ‘A krayt dragon stole all the leftover cookies,’ ‘all these footprints in the dust must have been a goblin,’ ‘I couldn’t practice forms because Guardian Chirrut was too distracting….’”

Bodhi giggled. “Those aren't stories, those are fibs! I get in trouble when I tell them. What's a krayt dragon?”

“A big monster that lives out in the desert with the giant birds,” Chirrut said. “Huge, almost as big as a transport ship, with claws and teeth, and they eat people who go out at night by themselves!”

Chirrut might have overdone it at this, though, as Bodhi began to look nervous, and whined, “It won't eat  _ us _ , will it?”

On the other hand, Karo sat up, demanding excitedly, “Do the big birds and the, uhh, kray-at dag-rons  _ fight each other?” _

“Probably,” Baze allowed. “Though the dragons stay on the ground, mostly. And away from cities. I’ve never seen the birds down here, either. People are too much trouble to eat.”

He put a blanket over them both, and pulled his own around his shoulders.

“But—” Karo began, but Chirrut shushed her. 

“Now, now, that's enough excitement for one evening. Why don’t we all put our heads on the pillows and try to sleep?”

Both children nodded sleepily, and immediately scrambled down from the cot to snuggle close to Baze and Chirrut.

“Er. You don't want to sleep on the cot?” Chirrut tried.

“The cot’s so far away,” Karo protested, snuggling her cheek against Chirrut’s side. 

“And it’s really hard, actually,” Bodhi added, cheerfully stealing Baze’s pillow as he began to stretch out.

Baze, with a pair of very small feet in his side, and the knowledge that most children sleep like tornados, sighed out and reached across the space to get hold of Chirrut’s hand. He’s in it for the long haul.

“That cot  _ is _ really uncomfortable.” Chirrut was laughing silently, shaking, but not enough to disturb the children who had suddenly dropped off to sleep in their arms. He kissed Baze's hand, and whispered when he was sure they slept soundly, “Makes you glad you're a gay monk, right?”

“Seems like even that can’t save me,” Baze agreed, fondly. “Besides, with my luck, all our children would take after you. It would be a nightmare.”

He yawned again, and got kicked for his troubles. “Next time we can sleep so their legs are aimed at  _ you _ .”

Chirrut giggled. “ _ Next time _ I'll lock the door.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Just hold it steady…”

“Oh no, by all means, take your time, Brother Baze,” Chirrut sang, holding his end of the rope. “What’s 100 kilos in the Force?”

“Isn’t this what you do all that meditation for?” Baze grumbled back, serenely.

The seasons had worn on, and the last house on the block had been built: this house just needed a few more bricks on the roof, and since high places were something of a hazard for Chirrut in ways that they weren’t to other monks and nuns, Chirrut stayed below and hauled materials up to them. He was sweating and straining, but held strong.

They taught brickwork to whomever could learn, and so brickwork had spread through the city at a rapid pace. Previously unskilled laborers now could earn a coin or two from those who could afford it, while Baze and Chirrut and more and more Guardians built new homes for the destitute, working through Epan Se’s book.

(He had not yet asked for it back from Chirrut.)

Baze hooked the platform of materials over onto the newly built second floor of the house, carefully arranging it to sit squarely before he called down to Chirrut to lower it slightly, and then pulled the hook off so Chirrut could drop it through the pulley and begin loading the next set.

Dusting his hands off, Baze looked out at the newly reminted slums, and wonders how long this stopgap will hold; how long before some other desperate thing that they can’t fix will happen? But he can’t worry about that yet—they have made difference enough for the families they’ve helped.

“Nan-in, did you ever think you’d learn a truly useful skill?” he teased, delivering a load of roof tiles to him.

“He didn’t, really,” Alussa laughed. “Between the two of us there’s one whole roofer.”

“One very fast roofer,” Baze said. “If you’re quick, we may have the temple to ourselves again before the end of the week.”

Baze distributed materials to everyone working on the upper floor, and then set to work himself, trying to finish a long day with a burst of activity. They were very nearly there, due to everyone pitching in.

“Master Chirrut! Master Chirrut!” came a shout from down the busy alley, and Chirrut smiled, recognizing Bodhi, and, judging by the patter of feet, his sister toddling behind. “Look, look!”

“Look at what?” Chirrut teased, setting his work down to catch the flailing boy.

“Oh!” Bodhi said, realizing the obvious. “Well. I mean. I finished the lessons you gave me, and I wrote the whole aurebesh and my name, and Karo’s, too, and yours and Brother Baze’s! Where is he?”

“He’s up on the roof now, so you’ll have to wait until he comes down to show him,” Chirrut smiled.

“Okay! Can we help?”

“Certainly.” Good on their word, the children were attentive to their studies, and just as helpful in rebuilding their neighborhood.

“Do you think they’ll take me at the Pre-Academy next year, Master Chirrut?”

Chirrut bristled slightly at that. _No_ , he didn’t _want_ this dear boy to be crushed up and spit out by the Imperial ‘education’ system. But Bodhi wanted to fly, and he couldn’t blame him for such a desire, especially when it would feed his family. He was certainly sharp enough for a scholarship—with the obligatory military service afterward.

“I think they might not let you in because you are too clever for them,” Chirrut laughed, and squeezed his shoulder. “May the Force of others be with you, child.”

Serious moment over, Chirrut tipped his head back. “Baze! We have visitors!”

Baze, having just come downstairs and standing less than five feet from Chirrut, winced as he emerged from the side door just in time to get greeted by Bodhi and Karo, clamoring for his attention.

“Ah, prestigious visitors,” Baze said, putting his hands together and bowing as they did the same. “How is your youngest sister?”

“Very good, Master Baze!” Karo chirped, grinning at him. “She’s starting to say words now.”

“And we’re not influencing the words to be funny, are we?” Baze prompted.

“I taught her to say ‘Poodie!’” Bodhi grinned, and Baze sighed, before making appreciative noises at the display of handwriting presented to him. It really _had_ improved, and Baze had a distinct affection for the family. He was a little sad that he’d seen them less since their house was built, but they had lives to live the same as he did.

“Very good. Master Chirrut could use someone with your skill to do all his handwriting for him,” Baze confided, giving the kids a wink. “His is _terrible._ ”

It was true: even Master Sidhava had either gotten tired of Chirrut’s whining or his mistakes in the scribal rooms, and had reassigned him to be the Head Master in charge of outreach and the poor.

Chirrut, with Baze, had done much better in Epan Se’s old job.

Bodhi and Karo tittered and hugged Baze, because he was so nice to hug.

“Well, we better be going now! We're helping Aba to make dinner! Would you and Baze come, Master Chirrut?”

Chirrut hummed. “We have some work yet to do here. And we have our food at the Temple…”

“Oh! But we'll make a special bowl for monks!” Karo piped up. “All veg, no seasonings. Grandma says she likes that you are cheap guests!”

Chirrut burst out laughing, and Baze did, too. “Well, if we're expected…”

“It’s okay to put some seasonings in mine,” Baze assured them, with a grin. “I only pretend to be completely committed to my life of poverty.”

“Does that mean you’ll be there?” Karo chirped.

“We will. But let us finish up here, and then get at least a little cleaner,” Baze said, watching them run off with a grin. He reached out to get ahold of Chirrut, gently pulling them together for a kiss.

“How does it feel to be nearly done?” he wondered. Of course there would be something else to do next, there always was; but at least this was one step forward.

Chirrut sighed, stretching his back as he reached up around Baze’s neck. “With this? Good.”

He drew nearer to Baze, breathing in his scent, feeling the warmth from his body, hearing his heart rate slowing as their exertion slowed. After a few seconds, he asked, “What does it look like?”

“Hmm,” Baze turned in Chirrut’s arms, keeping one arm slung over his companion’s shoulders as he considered the house. “Unfinished, as of yet. Full of potential. I put an extra room on the second story, for storage or…expansion. For when friends visit.”

Baze looked up and down the street—not every house was their work, but enough were so that Baze could tell the difference he’d made. “It looks like a good change. Like the beginning of the future.”

Chirrut smiled and nodded, though his eyes, gazing blindly into the middle distance, were slightly worried. He was tempted to ask, by his own worry or a nudge in the Force, how long this future would last.

But the living Force was in the present, it was now, inside of him, and inside of Baze and all the acolytes with them, and with Pratyeka Rook’s dear family, so Chirrut ignored the concern, especially since no dizziness and no Visions came with it.

He squeezed Baze’s hand. “I like the present just fine.”

“It seems like it’s been a long time since the future has intruded on you,” Baze agreed, with a faint smile.

“Ugh, don’t tempt it!” Chirrut groaned.

Baze squeezed Chirrut’s fingers, gently, and they headed back to the temple to get ready for their dinner date.

...

Many years later, when the Imperial lust for kyber had grown too great to be sustained with diplomacy, when these homes and these families destroyed in the occupation had broken Baze’s faith, when the rape of the Temple had fractured even the bond between Baze and Chirrut, when all the monks and nuns had been killed or fled but Baze and Chirrut, when even NiJedha itself was burned up in fire from heavens like the old (now, destroyed) texts warned of, they met the boy again.

Chirrut thought he sensed a familiar presence in the cells of Saw Gerrera—Jyn, Jyn Erso was important, but there was someone else—and was concentrating so hard he was slower than Cassian to keep Baze from throttling the Imperial pilot.

(“Does he look familiar?” Chirrut demanded.

“No,” Baze replied, his way of not answering.)

But in the starship, when Chirrut had run out of questions that yielded only “All of it,” from his partner, Chirrut went to the pilot, who also only said one thing:

“I’m the pilot. I brought the message.”

“Did they hurt you?” Chirrut asked, holding out a hand, asking permission to touch. The young man’s mind was—jumbled, confused: it almost hurt Chirrut to feel him through the Force, but he persevered. “I want to help you.”

The inside of  Bodhi’s mind felt like it had been jounced around like a smashball inside his skull, leaving him dizzy and uncertain. Everything felt distant and echoey, but he had to focus. He had to do what it was that he promised Galen he would do.

“I don’t think you can help me,” Bodhi answered, shying away from the strange monk. He remembered that the robes belonged to the Guardians of the Whills, they were distinct. He didn’t want any reminder of home; now sunk beneath the surface of the planet, now.

Chirrut reclaimed his hand.

“Baze?” he asked instead. “Do we have any water?”

Someone else nudged his knuckles—Jyn, coping, like him, by focusing on others—and gave him water. “Thank you. Bodhi? Will you drink some water?”

“Okay,” Bodhi managed, his eyes on the window—it showed only space, now. There was nothing behind. He wasn’t sure if there was anything ahead. He took the water and lifted it to his mouth, trying to find a center to the spinning world inside his mind. It tasted like old copper in his mouth but he drank anyway, feeling the interconnected circuits of his mind firing and fizzling.

There was _something._ “You’re a Guardian.”

“I am.”

“He _was_ ,” Baze grumbled.

“Brother Baze is right. I am only a Guardian of what is left of NiJedha.” He slipped back into Jedhan to ask: “You're a local, aren't you, Bodhi?”

“Yes,” Bodhi asserts, but it’s more like a question than an answer. He repeated, “Yes?”

After a moment, he shook his head. “I grew up on Jedha, but I’m not local anymore. No one is.”

“Then all that I am Guardian of is here,” Chirrut said, continuing to speak Jedhan, since the young man seemed to understand it at least. This was only for Bodhi’s ears, and Baze’s. “My name is Chirrut Îmwe. My friend is Baze Malbus.”

 _Surely_ they had met before, Chirrut thought. His Force felt too familiar, achingly familiar, like a lost loved one. Bodhi was a common enough name, though, and the man’s mind was so... _mad_ that he could have been one of Chirrut’s acolytes years ago and Bodhi might not recognize him, and there was too little of his mind left for Chirrut to recognize _him_ . He found he hated, more and more as war dragged on and on, his inability to _see_.

“How many hours is it to Eadu?”

“Eight if you’re preserving fuel,” Bodhi replied automatically. “Less than four at our rate.”

“Then you should sleep. Your mind could use a rest,” Chirrut encouraged. Space was cold, colder even than Jedha, so he drew off his cloak and offered it to the young pilot.

After a few moments, Bodhi took the offered garment: Chirrut guessed that he nodded.

“Thank you,” he said, for the first time in Jedhan, like it was an old language, understood but not often spoken.

Something about looking at Bodhi’s cloudy features dragged some old tired memory up in Baze’s mind, even as he almost disappeared in Chirrut’s outer robe, looking small and tired and cold. He thought back, remembering that the first time he’d met Chirrut had been Bodhi Day; so long in the past now it seemed like another era.

How well did he remember his time before Chirrut? Before Chirrut’s visions started coming true.

The memory came back to him, suddenly. He leaned over, pulled Chirrut close. Baze said in his ear, “Bodhi Rook. Remember? Epan Se rejected his family’s plea for help.”

Chirrut jerked, his hand twitching like he wanted to touch Bodhi’s face to be sure, but Baze was there, and took his hand instead. They weren’t always intimate like this, anymore, but Chirrut gripped his hand now. “Bodhi Rook? He’s _alive_? I thought—”

The whole family had perished in the occupation, that whole _block_ had been incinerated, like they had wanted to dismantle the work of Baze’s hands in particular.

But apparently Bodhi had survived. He had a higher purpose, Chirrut thought: indeed, a _very_ high one, it seemed. He brought the message.

“He wanted to be a pilot,” Baze muttered, quiet, eyes downcast to the dirty metal decking of the U-Wing’s floor. “The Empire didn’t kill him, but his family…”

There was no way to know. They’d gotten a group of orphans out of Jedha, and long before that, the youngsters in the temple’s care. The rest was probably gone.

“Bodhi,” Chirrut breathed, but the young man was asleep. Chirrut squeezed Baze’s hand, was still holding it, and together they mourned their city that had actually died many years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> We have mostly caught up to our writing at this point, but we do have plans to write more _eventually_ , so this series is going on indefinite hiatus. Thanks to all those who read, kudoed, or commented! May the force of others be with you!

**Author's Note:**

> [ 53\. The Giver Should Be Thankful](http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html)
> 
>  
> 
> While Seisetsu was the master of Engaku in Kamakura he required larger quarters, since those in which he was teaching were overcrowded. Umezu Seibei, a merchant of Edo, decided to donate five hundred pieces of gold called ryo toward the construction of a more commodious school. This money he brought to the teacher.
> 
> Seisetsu said: "All right. I will take it."
> 
> Umezu gave Seisetsu the sack of gold, but he was dissatisfied with the attitude of the teacher. One might live a whole year on three ryo, and the merchant had not even been thanked for five hundred.
> 
> "In that sack are five hundred ryo," hinted Umezu.
> 
> "You told me that before," replied Seisetsu.
> 
> "Even if I am a wealthy merchant, five hundred ryo is a lot of money," said Umezu.
> 
> "Do you want me to thank you for it?" asked Seisetsu.
> 
> "You ought to," replied Uzemu.
> 
> "Why should I?" inquired Seisetsu. "The giver should be thankful."


End file.
